Six Years Ago

Tomorrow will be six years.  I really needed Mom this past year. It was filled with so many unexpected and upsetting issues, but having my mother by my side through all of it would have made things so much easier.

  First, my water well collapsed around Labor Day. No running water. I had to pipe over not-so-good water from my neighbors (who were gone for the summer), but at least I had running water.  It took six weeks for the well drillers to be able to get here to drill a new well; several thousands of dollars that I didn’t have, but my Dad actually paid for it, a shock.  Then we had a major hurricane days later, which was a huge mess. 

  Then in November, my beloved workplace of 16 years (in a company that I’ve been at for 21 years) got the horrific news that it was being taken over by a weird European company and would close by the first week in February.  Losing such a wonderful place of employment with absolutely irreplaceable co-workers was devastating; I was hired by that European company, but left after just two weeks; I don’t do the cold, calculated European way of work and European way of life, like, at all. I was able to go to another store that hadn’t been taken over, but a farther drive and with a slight pay decrease. The people there aren’t nearly as great and close and fun and loving as my other store, but it’s a full-time job and an easy one at that.

  Now, just this week, we got the news that our store, too, is being converted into the soulless European company!  We will lose our jobs in November.  So I’m trying to go to yet another store that hasn’t been taken over yet. Once again, my life is being turned upside down. 

  Many of the people I worked with for years don’t speak to me anymore; one of them who I liked very much worked nearby, but hasn’t said a word to me or visited in six weeks.  Losing so many once-great co-workers and friends has been hard on me.  Confusing and upsetting. Some of us keep in touch regularly, but nothing’s the same anymore. Not by a long shot.

  But all of this would have been made much easier by simply having my Mom by my side.  Just her presence, her comfort, her help, her care and concern, would have made all these issues not nearly as scary and hurtful. I’m alone through all of this, just me in this journey. I have to say that this past year, I needed my mother more than in the previous five years since she passed away. Oh, Momma! How I need you!

Three Years Ago

 Tomorrow is the third anniversary of Mom's death. No, it doesn't really get that much easier. No, I don't "move on" from something so traumatic and life-changing; I just try to make do the best I can until I'm ready to go. The "brain fog" is long gone. Crying and wailing all the time is also in the distant past. But the incredible lonliness and emptiness remains as nothing positive has supplanted it in any way. 

  In the past year since my last post, I spent thousands of dollars on a therapist via the BetterHelp app; it was nice to talk to somebody off and on for several months. I've been able to throw away lots of Mom's junk that I just kept in closets and sheds, unwilling to part with it; I realized none of it was needed or had any sentimental value to me at all. So there have been positive things that I've been able to do in the past year. 

  Ever since Mom's death, I've been on a Facebook group for people who have lost their mother. A woman on there took a picture of me and my beloved mother and made a cute painting of it. I'll share it here and bid you adeiou for now.

Some Minor Progress?

 I finally moved Mom's sick bed back from the living room corner to the guest room. It had been sitting there unused for two years this month as Mom was sent to the hospital and then to a nursing home, where she died soon after on August 16th, 2019. I rarely am in my living room, so I kept putting it off as I guess I wanted to hold on to any memories of my beloved mother as I could. My online therapist encouraged me to finally move it back, and I did just that this week.  I found lots of books and paperwork under the bed and I cleaned that all up. I then brought out Mom's clothes basket that had been sitting in another corner, and I went through that, throwing away most of the clothes but keeping some favorites she wore, as well as the last thing she wore before leaving my home forever. I feel that this was a bit of progress in my grief.

Where it stayed since Mom's death

What was underneath 

Time for the clothes basket 

Back where it originally was 

Her 66th Birthday

 Mom's 66th birthday would have been tomorrow. Every year, I would scour the greeting card section to find the perfect card for her. My birthday is exactly one month from hers, and she would do the same for me. We both kept each other's bday cards for life. For the second year now after her death, I still bought a card for my momma, and I'll probably do so as long as I live. I read it out loud and placed it on her piano on top of last year's card. I guess it's just a tradition I'll always have.

Anniversary

It was exactly a year ago today that I lost my beloved mother and absolute best friend, Carol Diane Gibbs Collins at 64 years old. I stayed by her side for the week that she was dying, her last words to me were "I love you" before she became uncommunicative for days. I didn't know what to do today, so I just drove to the nursing room where she died, sat in my car in the empty visitor parking lot with Mom's ashes for little while until the minute of her death. I even wore the exact same clothes I wore on that tragic day. I'm just very sentimental and traditional in that way. It was overcast and drizzly last year, the kind of days that Mom loved; today, it was partly sunny and hot.

 A year later, and things aren't all that much better in life; I just go through the motions in life: work, home, going out with a friend or two not often enough anymore. Things just aren't the same anymore; nothing's fun or exciting, because just about everything in my life had Mom right by my side. My twin, my next door neighbor, and my soulmate, gone 20 years too soon. I'm an only child, my father is useless, Mom's extended family hasn't been there for me, and obviously I don't have a spouse and kids. I had no money for grief therapy, so I've grieved alone for a year. I think about my momma every waking hour of my life.