Flowers

Erik has been out of town on business all week and it's been almost too much to handle. While my sisters and best friend have tried to fill my evenings, I have all too much emptiness all day and all night. I spend the day working and trying to chase my thoughts away, but no matter what I do, she is there. When I approach the stove to heat up lunch, I remember one of the last conversations I had with my mom when she was in the hospital. For the millionth time, I asked her to walk me through her cornbread dressing recipe so that I could serve it yet again for a large Christmas crowd at my house. That memory hurts for so many reasons that are hard to explain - partly because of my regret of not cooking her a Christmas dinner when she got out of the hospital when she asked me to (I was sick). Memories good and bad flood my mind and I can't seem to escape them.

Any quiet moment is filled with her. Without Erik here, I read and read in bed, trying to distract myself to sleep, just to turn the light out and start crying harder than ever. Then I try to read again and the cycle continues.

The sympathy cards are piled on my table, and I can only get through one or two a day. I had several of her belongings spread out on the table, things that I took from her house during the funeral: a music box from my childhood, the headband she was wearing when she died, the last magazine she read in the hospital. Some people said it was good to leave it out so that I could grieve her openly - some people said I needed to put it away. I at least wanted to put it all together in a safer place, but every time I approached it, I crumbled. Tonight, I moved it all to a different room as I painfully wept. Something about it didn't feel right, putting the only things I have left of my mother in a different room, but I suppose it will help to not confront her things day after day. It was so, so hard. My next goal was to try and organize that room (the baby's room), but I can't go back in there without losing it. I just can't believe this is all happening.

Tomorrow I will visit her grave for the first time since the funeral. Someone asked me today if it was too early. I believe it will be hard to see an unmarked grave without a headstone and with fresh dirt (her headstone isn't ready yet), but my sister asked me to go.

After the funeral service at the grave site, we went back to the funeral home to finish-up some things. On the way out of town, we passed the cemetery, and Erik asked if I wanted to say one last goodbye. I told him no, as I thought that I would see a bulldozer shoveling dirt over my beautiful mother's body (I saw it waiting as we finished the service). But as we drove by, I gave a scared glance and frantically asked to turn around and go back.


I'm so sad that she never saw the most brilliant collection of flowers ever on her behalf. I only wish I would have showered her with flowers when she was alive.