Family Matters

The greatest thing about starting a new day is that it is indeed a new day.

I recently moved with my husband and two children during our Christmas break from school in 2010. I shouldn’t have been surprised; I’ve been begging God to give me an adventure. Be careful what you ask for! The boys are very happy, and like all parents I weigh my happiness by their happiness. If they are happy, then so am I.

I’ve moved one other time in my life, which was when I was single and transferred with the hotel I worked for to Colorado Springs. Colorado is absolutely breathtaking! But it is also very lonely when the stardust has left your eyes and you’re doing nothing but working, home, working, home, working, home. Everyone can attest to that – yet I couldn’t deal – I moved back to my hometown, and much to my mother’s credit (at the time I was furious!) she refused to let me move back into my old room. I think she knew I’d never leave if she allowed that to happen. Sometimes as moms we have horrible decisions to make. And sometimes those decisions are unexplainable and our children will hate us for a time. But our children will understand. They’ll get it. The hard part is we might never see the light dawn; you might already be gone from this earthly plain.

This move was out of the blue and completely unexpected, but much hoped for. I just wish I had my best friends in my luggage! I didn’t expect the abrupt unhappiness I felt. I was not prepared for how much I would miss my mom. She is now gone, she passed ten years ago a week before Thanksgiving when my eldest was four months of age. But I used to call the voice mail on my dad’s phone to listen to her. I’d wanted to record that message, but my cousin erased my mother's voice mail when she called the phone company to delete everything but the phone itself to help my father during an issue we were dealing with as a family. That is a long story, albeit my mother’s voice was erased and my cousin will never know what she did – sometimes I’ll catch a voice mail from myself to my husband and I hear my mom’s voice in my won. It’s soothing, but like an ice cream cone while on a diet, it merely makes me hungrier for my mom. A vicious cycle. I’ve thought of letting my cousin know, but to what end? And, no, she won’t read this blog. I’m not even on her radar; it’s been made pretty clear that I don’t qualify. I'm pretty sure she'd say something like "I was doing something to help your father." And yet, my husband was taking care of it, just not in the way other family members thought he should. Family... everyone gets that, you need but say one word... Family.

Only those who’ve lost a parent or the person that was most pivotal in their lives understands this pain. If you’ve ever almost drown, you know the physical hurt. If you’ve ever left home and said goodbye, you know the emotional. Now put the two together, but you can never see that person ever again, and you’ve got it. No emails. No Skype. No text. Nothing. Your memories are wonderful, but sometimes you can put that person on pedestal for a time, and then have them get knocked off of it for whatever reason. And add to that no one wants to speak of the dead. There are days I’ve wanted to scream because it is as if my mother never existed. Talk of someone’s life, they did live. And their life is not the day that they died. It is the life that they lived up until the moment they died. And that too is a wondrous blessing, most especially if you believe in Heaven, and I do. My mother is with our Lord, she is with her children that passed before she did, she is with all those that she mourned, and now she is waiting for me, for my father, for my children. And so on…

For those crying and shaking your head, utterly furious with me right now, thinking it is not that easy. No, it is not. It takes quite a bit of time. It took me eight years, a solid eight years to see the brightness of my life again. And, unfortunately I haven’t got a great story to share. It just happened. One day I realized that I was breathing again, not drowning. ‘I was missing my mom,’ but it wasn’t a yearning, needing, bleeding, I cannot live without you missing her, it was I’ll see you again, mom, missing. I know where you are. And I do know that it does get better. Just don’t stop living while you’re healing. Live for the one lost, and the one lost will go on living. Within you.

Sharing on a blog is something I’ve tried before, and haven’t followed through on. I’d like to change that. I’d like to change it for myself and for any readers that might read it. This move has brought to the forefront my mother because this move ripped from me some friends that I became very close to. I’d enmeshed myself with our church, with the boy’s school, with my boy’s friend’s mothers. It was all so comfortable and it was all mine, and I was happy with it all. But I also became complacent. Complacency is ugly if you realize it and continue on down your path with your basket in your hand skipping and fa-la-la-la-di-aaa along not really giving a darn who might be behind you having to deal with your off key singing. And believe you me, I sing off key! Though I believe that if Cher should need backup, I’m there! (I’m sure she won’t be calling! :D )

Now… my boys will be home soon, and as with the telephone there will be no blogging at that point in time. Write me. Tell me what’s up with you (angelineshappyplanet@gmail.com). What are you going through? Remember not a one of us is alone. It’s just sometimes we’re all in survival mode and that can become very selfish, our life preserver only holds one… we don’t want to share!