It's a Long, Slow Ache

I've always felt like people that have passed are in the wind. When the wind blows strong and pushes your hair back, it feels like someone's touching your face or gently moving your hair around. It is a particularly windy day here in Austin and I feel like my mother is blowing through the trees and moving my wind chime. I fear that if I go outside, I may fall apart right in the yard. Each breeze is like an embrace, and while watching it soothes me, feeling it brings on a deep burning in my throat and heart.

It's a week today that I buried my mother, and I feel like time has stood still. While the rest of the world stays on its schedule and rushes by, I feel like I am paralyzed with grief and unable to join the world again. Something about going outside makes me begin to count the millions of things that she will never do again or that we'll never do together: she'll never shop as she used to love, she'll never go out to eat, she'll never listen to the oldies, she'll never see another movie, and she'll never feel the wind. I'll never feel her arms around me again, and she'll never feel my head again when I'm sick. The things I took for granted about her I can now barely utter.

Below are some photos of the two Christmases before. She loved to make Christmas dinner and serve it on her best china and on a very dressed-up table. We would work for hours in the kitchen, and I took for granted how much it all meant to her. I will gladly continue the traditions she loved every Christmas.

2006

2007

This year, she was in the hospital on Christmas day. A huge part of my regret is that she wanted me to cook a Christmas dinner when she got out, but I had a terrible stomach bug and wasn't up to it (I also knew she'd micromanage it and she needed to rest). Instead, I told her that we'd have a huge Valentine's party and to just let Christmas go this year. She had a bad black eye from a fall she took in the hospital, so I didn't even take one picture this year. I wish I could go back and change it all. Everything is so final. And final is so incredibly painful.