Six Months Hard Time

My world changed forever on February 28, 2024. I held my mom’s hand as she took her final breath, and nothing has been the same since. I’m great at lying, telling everyone that I’m ok, but the truth is that I’m a complete mess. Just go ahead and stop reading now if you don’t want to delve into my convoluted thoughts and feelings. I wouldn’t blame you. I don’t like living it, but I wasn’t given a choice in the matter.

Grief is a fickle thing. It doesn’t really go away, it just ebbs and flows with no concern for anyone in its path. It doesn’t seem to care if I’m sleeping, driving, working…it just bursts out with no regard whatsoever. Sometimes it’s tears, sometimes screams, and sometimes it’s just a silent dumbfounded expression that creeps over my face when the reality that she’s gone forever is just too much. I can’t control it any more than I can control the weather, to paraphrase a line from one of my all time favorite movies (iykyk).

The wonderful people in the home group of the NA meeting at our church on Wednesday evenings gave us a wind chime when mom passed. It hangs on my front porch, and I like to tell myself that when it’s ringing, it’s my mom letting me know she’s there with me. Mom used to sit on the porch for hours watching the birds, and now I do the same. She fed the birds every day, all year long. Birdseed and peanuts. The blue jays and woodpeckers are especially fond of the peanuts. So is the squirrel. I feed the birds every day. I walk out onto the porch and say good morning momma, just hoping the chimes respond. Then I fill the feeder with peanuts and seeds, being careful to keep some seeds to toss in the yard because mom said some of the tiny birds prefer to eat in the grass rather than the dish. Most mornings, I complete this simple task without incident. Occasionally though, I find myself becoming angry that I have to feed the birds. Not really that I have to do it, but that she isn’t here to do it. Other days, the tears flow down my cheeks. I search the sky and surrounding trees for mama cardinal. I sit on the porch and pout when the birds don’t come. I tell the silent wind chime that this new life of mine is bullshit.

For three of the last five months of her life, mom found herself going to wound care to manage the awful bedsores that developed on her heels and backside after she “busted her ball” and had a partial hip replacement. At one particularly painful appointment, they gave her a Scooby Doo stuffed animal to hold onto. This wasn’t just any Scooby. This one was dressed in boxing shorts and gloves with his tongue sticking out the side of his mouth. Mom took a particular liking to this Scooby, so much so that she told my sister she was gonna take him home! Now if my sister or I had said such a thing, mom would’ve told us that it wasn’t ours to take, so my sister told her she’d have to leave Scooby for the next patient that needed him. My sister scoured the internet and found the boxing Scooby and ordered it as a Christmas present for my mom. As fate would have it, mom ended up back on the hospital before Christmas. It wasn’t looking good, so she got her Scooby present early. She was quite literally like a kid at Christmas when she opened it. She squealed and squeezed Scooby, and from then on, he went wherever she did.

The stint in the hospital led to her first stay at the hospice house, and Scooby went with her. The nurses were vigilant in making sure she had her Scooby. Mom got to come home just before Christmas with Scooby in tow. She went back to hospice after New Year’s, and Scooby went too. After 28 long days, he made the trip back home with her again. One random day in February, mom and I were watching a movie in her bedroom, and Scooby laid between us on the bed. She told me that the reason she liked him so much and had wanted to bring the one home from wound care was because of me. She knew how much I loved Scooby, and she thought I’d like to have him. Scooby has been sleeping on my bed, right next to my pillow, since mom went home to Glory. Some nights I fall asleep with his boxing glove clad paw in my hand. Other nights I hold him close to my heart, his tongue on my neck (mom warned me that sometimes he could be a little frisky 🤣). Every morning when I make my bed, I straighten him up between the pillows. At 44, I’m back to sleeping with a stuffed animal. Grief makes you do things you might not otherwise.

My daughter is pregnant, and my first granddaughter is due to make her appearance in September. Having a baby in the house means having lots of “baby things” in the house as well. Out with the old, in with the new. All the things we’ve been hoarding over the years have to go to make room for the new addition to the family. It takes me a long time to get rid of things, because to me they aren’t just things. They’re memories of my childhood, of a time when life was easier and my mom and grandparents were still here. That’s the thing about living in a house that’s been passed down from generation to generation. “Stuff” accumulates, but it’s not just stuff. It’s a lifetime of love. My daughter laughs at the ridiculous things I’ve saved from her childhood, and then I show her all the things my mom saved from mine. I’m learning that we don’t have to save everything to keep the memories, and I’m starting to let go. She tells me that she’s proud of me with every little thing I toss into the trash bag.

Cleaning out the house also means packing up mom’s clothes to donate to someone who could use them. Mom was never big to begin with, and the last few years of her life she was downright tiny. Neither my sister nor I can fit into her clothes, so I began the daunting task of emptying her closets, dressers, and cedar chests. Of course there are a few items that I just couldn’t part with, so they’ll hang in my closet until I get up the nerve to let them go. I laughed at the shirt from the Virgin Islands that said “Sex is a misdemeanor. The more I miss, the meaner I get.” I cried when I pulled out her Christmas sweaters and realized she won’t be here to share in all of our holiday traditions. I cursed her for the forty plain black tank tops, none of which were my size. I chuckled as I pulled out matching purses, knowing that every time she found one she really liked, she’d buy at least two. She did the same thing with shoes. By the way, none of them were my size either!

Slowly but surely, I’m going through every drawer, box, and bag. The sheer volume is overwhelming. I’ve got so many questions for my mom now that will never get answered. Why are we keeping a receipt from Kwik Fill for two packs of Marlboro Lights from 2009? How many owners manuals for VCRs do we really need, especially since we don’t have a VCR? Who are these people in these old pictures? When are we ever going to need an Alpine Club membership card from 1999? What on Gods green earth do we need to keep the empty plastic case of every Party Lite tea light candle ever burned in this house? They’re literally everywhere!!! Also, just how many boxes of 5000 staples does a person need??

My Pappap lived through the Great Depression. He saved EVERYTHING! He clearly passed that trait down to my mom, who shared it with me. My daughter, thankfully, is all about breaking the vicious cycle. I mean, none of us need to be on Extreme Hoarders, but we sure have accumulated a massive house full of ridiculous things over the past six decades. Eeesh!! Maybe it’s not such a bad thing that my children grew up in the disposable age. Nothing is really made to last, so they don’t see the need to keep things beyond their usefulness. My problem is that I’m so used to holding on to things that when I finally get rid of them, it feels like I’m throwing away the people who are no longer here with me. Yes, I know that’s irrational. That doesn’t stop those thoughts from creeping in to my exhausted brain.

One of the things I cherished about living with my mom was that every morning, she’d give me a hug before I’d leave for work and tell me to have a good day. “Not likely,” I’d say, “you know where I’m going!” She’d laugh and tell me “Nike!” You know, just do it. I miss that when I leave for work now. I miss telling her I love her just to hear her say “I love you more.” Her hugs were magic, and I hate not being able to hug her. It downright sucks. My sister took one of my mom’s sweatshirts and made me a “Mom hug” pillow. She stuffed the arms of the shirt with Poly-fil and put a pillow in the body, then sewed the cuffs and hems together. My daughter and son-in-law think it’s creepy when I put it in my chair at night. Apparently it’s a scary sight when you walk past the room at night and see just a torso in a chair. I hug that pillow every morning, placing it just next to Scooby when I make my bed. I hug it every night before I go to sleep. I lay on it when I watch tv or when I’m missing her and just can’t stop the tears from flowing. I’m laying on it right now as I write this. Sometimes I even grab the arms and wrap them around me, closing my eyes and praying to feel her embrace just for a second. I miss my mom so damn much!

There are reading glasses all over the house. She must’ve had 50 pairs! Every coat or hoodie I come across has a collection of Puffs Plus in the pocket. There are hair clips stashed on every mantle, and dozens of other reminders that my mom used to live here. I still call it Granny’s house, even though it’s mine now. I think in my heart it will always be hers. It’s hard to move things, but then I have to remind myself that while she isn’t living here anymore, we are. It’s not just a house, it’s our home, and we need to live in it however we are comfortable. I always told her that I wouldn’t know how to live without her. She said I had to, because she did. She didn’t give up or dwell too long on the past when she lost her mom, and she told me that her example would help me get on with my life once she was gone. I’m trying. I really am.

Are you still reading this? Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I just need to get it all out, but it’s nice to know someone cares enough to listen. Please don’t be afraid to talk about my mom around me. It won’t make me sad. It’s how her love keeps going, and it’s comforting to me to know that she hasn’t been forgotten.

You’ve heard of new moms having “baby brain,” right? I’m certain I’ve got bereavement brain. If you haven’t heard from me, or if I’ve missed something important, please know that it isn’t intentional. I’m doing the best I can. It’s been six months hard time, and I don’t think parole is an option. I’ve just got to find a way to make the best of it.

“Get busy living or get busy dying. That’s goddamn right.”~Red