I have had a very sad past week or so. Since my mother's death, I have gone from devastated to better (like just having crying episodes every day or so), but this past week I just can't get my mind to get on a different track. Part of it is the changing of the season. Easter and flowers remind me a lot of my mom, and everything right now is screaming Easter and spring (flowers). Texas thunderstorms and dark rolling clouds remind me of her (she loved storms), and it's been a week of nothing but. Watching dead things come back to life (spring) has always been my favorite thing. But spring forgot someone this year.
As I am still somehow in this stage of denial (with her having died less than 3 months ago), I have not forgotten that she's gone but I still can't make my heart or mind accept it. I still almost buy a candle for her every time I see a gardenia scent. I still almost call her while I'm making dinner, the time I reserved to talk with her. She's the only one in my life that always wanted to know what I was making. And I struggle endlessly with regret over so many things, but mainly my last weekend with her. I can't express how grateful I am that I saw her two days before she died, but I have a lot of pain associated with that trip. I was a morning-sick holiday-exhausted daughter that was not cherishing the time I was spending with my mother, even if she had just gotten out of the hospital. I wish I could re-write the entire weekend; make myself the heroin that swoops in and makes it all better. But instead, she begged to get out of the hospital too early to come home and be with us (she had been there 4-5 weeks already) and I didn't cherish it. And then she died. Typical mother-daughter conflict that happened that weekend haunts me. I can't let it go. It symbolizes something much bigger than I can explain right now.
There is a new woman that joined my grief group who's situation seems pretty similar to mine. Her mother died after a life of chronic illness, neediness and substance abuse (though she had sobered like my mom had recently). Her mom died just two weeks after my mom died. She told her painful story at the group without shedding a tear, staring at the ceiling while she spoke, still in complete shock and denial that her mother was gone. She's going through the things I went through right afterwords - horrible dreams of a funeral straight from a horror movie - dreams of the suffering that happened right before. She waits, like I did, for her mother to visit in a dream to tell her everything's OK and that she can just live her life. The bad dreams will stop, I tell her. But I'm still waiting on the latter.
We started our new childbirth class this week, and it's funny how unused I am to a classroom/group setting that when we sat down in the circle, I immediately associated it with my grief group. I had the brief thought: thank goodness - finally a group of pregnant women that I can talk to who have lost their mothers and know how devastating it all is. But I quickly realized this was not a place to grieve the passing of others but to celebrate and prepare for the new life inside. Of course, part of my pregnant story has been about losing my mom, so I shared honestly my fear of stalling out during childbirth because of deep sadness (this happens to many women). I'm happy I'll have a place to confront these fears and to work it out (our teacher totally gets it).
Our childbirth teacher is our neighbor - she lives just around the corner with her hip husband and precious daughters (of 8 and 6 or something?). Child art hangs everywhere and their house screams, I have been lived in and I see so much love. Their girls dance around and beg for attention from the pregnant couples, and they peak around the corner to listen to the stories their mom tells us about childbirth and how they came into the world. I have no doubt they will probably sit front and center as we watch childbirth videos as a class, right there in their living room. They enter tid-bits to their mother's stories about their births, adding, The cord was wrapped around my neck and I looked like a big blueberry-face coming out! I love how comfortable they are with the subject. I love that they are our neighbors.
I was surprised that we are the only ones in the class having a home birth. There is a couple that's giving birth in a birthing center, but the rest are headed to the hospital. Our teacher made the mistake of saying that home birth is best, as she then had to backtrack as the class verbally took playful offense to her comment. But I was glad she said it since we're the only ones. She's had a hospital birth and a homebirth, so she would know.
An automatic nursery appeared at our house recently. We went from having one precious blanket that I bought on Craigslist to having an entire set-up for baby. Erik's dad (who has two very young sons and lives in Italy) sent us all of the baby stuff that they recently used. It's all top-of-the-line Italian preciousness. We are eternally grateful. Soooooooo grateful. Thank you, Rick!!!!
Potties, baby carrier-thing, high chair, clothes...
The beautiful cradle that Erik's grandfather handmade for his little brother (his grandfather tragically died in a plane crash last year - he was a pilot).
A SWEET buggy-stroller-pram!
And a swing...
And a crib (and a play pin)!And we've been working on the house a little.
Remember this?
Little better now...And we got on the roof and cleaned out leaves from gutters and places...
See him?
Puppy says, "Hi!"
And Firecracker says hi, too.
