Year One

I've been writing this blog in my head for almost a year now...thinking about what I want to say about having endured a year of my life without my Mother in it.  I had many grand ideas and some less than rational thoughts.  Today, none of them seem to matter.  So I'm just gonna wing it.

Me & my Mom in June 1966...just me and my bestie hanging out

August 19, 2016 marks the first year anniversary of my Mom, Sharon's, death.  To tell the truth, I wasn't sure what I would find when I finally got to this day.  I was hoping to have the mystical and elusive 'closure' that so many people seem to think we need after the death of a loved one.  I've come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as closure.  After suffering through the deluge of emotion and the repeated waves of sorrow at each passing 'first without Mom,' I find myself feeling less complete than I expected.

I thought by now the almost tangible hole left in my middle when she was torn from my life (because you don't really 'lose' your Mom, do you?  She's ripped from you, isn't she?) would have healed over a bit leaving insensitive scar tissue but feeling more or less intact and solid.  That could not be further from the truth.

Truth is the hole is still there.  I imagine the edges are pink and sensitive still but more or less solid.  However, it doesn't take a lot to get them raw and bleeding again.  I don't think I'll ever be really whole again.

So, as is my habit from childhood, I decided to poke the bear.  What can I say?  I'm a little bit of a masochist, apparently.

I've spent my downtime this week going through the huge suitcase of photographs I found at Mom's house last summer when I cleared it out in preparation to sell.  I spent a lot of the time alternately laughing my ass off and bawling my eyes out.  There are a lot of really good pictures that I didn't know existed and many more that I had forgotten about.  OMG I was a skinny kid all the way through high school.  If I knew then what I know now, I never would have been sad about being 'fat'.

Criminy!

But I digress.

I found some corkers in there, too, of Mom.  My goal for this weekend is to get some more of them scanned and 'shopped to share for posterity.  Just a few, mind you.  I would not dilute her memory or sully her life by plastering it all over the Internet.*  My Mom was a very private person.  To put a bunch of pictures of her on the internet without her permission feels like disrespect to me. That was not her style.  I wouldn't do that to her any more than I would scatter her ashes in Nebraska.

She was a Colorado girl through and through.  That's where she'll be once I can bring myself to let go of that box of ashes.

Turns out I have a lot less to say than I thought I would.

tl:dr?

Love you, Mom.  Love you gobs.

*More than a couple people in my life took this the wrong way.  I didn't mean to imply that I think sharing pictures of your loved ones is bad.  I don't think it is necessarily.  I just don't think my Mom would have liked it.  So now I'll just put my foot back in my mouth where it clearly belongs.  Please accept my apologies.