Missing My Mom-The 10 Year Mark (well, 2 days ago anyway)

Where do I start? At the beginning seemed logical when I started writing this, but where exactly is that? The beginning of my life? The beginning of her life? At the end of hers? See, it is quite the predicament. Life simply isn't that cut and dry. We are all intertwined. What I'm typing here, sure it's told from my perspective, but I'm just one measly character. So this isn't the complete story. I can't tell the whole story as I have not lived the lives of any of the other characters. Many, I'm certain, I don't even know about as we are all who we are because of who we've known, and I simply wasn't around for the whole story. So, I concluded that the only truly logical thing I can do is to just start, and see where it takes me. If you'd like to come along, I'm happy to have you! However, if you're a character in this story and easily offend, you might steer clear. Consider yourself warned. Consider yourself welcome anyway if you so choose. I mean none of it offensively. I'm in a place where hearing I'm wrong about any of this is fine too! I'm just telling it from my perspective. From the perspective I felt, both at the time, and as I progress through this life long process of grief. So, here I go: I had a wonderful life with a wonderful family. My brother was born right before I turned 6. Some of my fondest memories were of us playing together. From the pizza throwing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle machine, to the light up guns or pushing him on the swings, he was such a fun kid to have around (especially when he repeatedly sang the wrong lyrics to New Kids on the Block songs, but we’ll save those fun stories for another time.) My sister, 2.5 years older than me, was somewhat of an idol. We played school, Barbies, etc together. She often mystified me with her interest in things like He-Man and her blue pick-up truck. I never quite understood it all, and that made me want to all the more. She and I had our sisterly arguments of course but we remained really close for many years. When she attended college, I was envious of her ability to attend retreats with people she hadn’t known long, and was proud of her that she had found her voice, long before I knew where to look for mine. She was my backboard for everything growing up. From boys, to bullies, friends and church, she had all the answers before I did. My father worked hard for a living, traveling some, but working from home quite a bit too and I was usually thankful for having him around (except when he was calling me out on things I shouldn’t have been doing! ha) My mother was my very best friend, and while I know I wasn’t hers, I loved that I could talk to her about anything at all. She always got excited with me for things going well, and she always had words of encouragement and gave me other perspectives when things weren’t. I have great memories of growing up. From dancing crazy and singing obnoxiously, to family traditions that couldn’t be beat. We had a house full of kids from my mother’s daycare, so there was never a time when I didn’t have a playmate close by. Our basement was a great toy room and family room complete with the wood burning fire place in the cold of the winter. We did crafts regularly growing up. We played outside until dinner. We lived on a cul-de-sac that was often turned into a baseball diamond and early on none of our neighbors had fences, so the backyards turned into one giant football field. We sat on the curb with neighbor kids eating our watermelon, spitting seeds into the street and exchanging Garbage Pal Kids. Yep, life was awesome! Even the ones that weren't so great in the moment became great stories to tell, and memories to look back on. So, as I said, I had a great childhood. It’s not really where this story takes place but it gives a sliver of background. This story’s main event took place when I was 23. I had a brand new apartment that had never been lived in before my roommate Jenny and I hauled all our stuff in. I had a man I had been dating for several months, whom I was certain I would marry. His name was Benjamin. I had friends who I traveled with for spring break. I had a job teaching children with special needs, which was what I had always dreamed of doing. I had it all, really. I mean what more could a 23 year old ask for? But then, life changed. No, not a job change, or relationship status change. No, not even a change I realized could happen on that day. But there are moments in life that change you so deeply that you can divide your life into pre- and post-event. On July 23 2004, one of those moments happened for me. So what was that change? Well, I remember the day like it happened yesterday. At least parts of it. I had gone to a garage sale that morning. A woman who had taught for several years was getting rid of tons of teaching materials. I picked up a trunk load of things for my classroom. I called my mom to see if I should stop by and show her. She usually loved to do this kind of thing. She wanted me to haul it all in, and I told her no, it was too much stuff; she would have to come out and look at it. She said she wasn't feeling up to it so she'd see it all later. I was bit agitated, but nothing I wouldn't get over in 2 minutes, so I went back to my apartment, and went about my day. Then, in the afternoon, I got a call from my dad saying my mom was in the hospital. I remember thinking "maybe this will be the wake up call she needs" as past events hadn’t been as inspiring as I had hoped. And then, I let the thought go. I took my time to brush my teeth, change my shirt (into the Goofy shirt she had given me for Valentine's Day that year), put on a bit of makeup in case others came up to visit her too. Before I had even left, my brother, who still lived at home, was calling me asking me where I was. He seemed concerned I wasn't there yet. As I hung up the phone and walked out the door, I remember thinking "Wow, what's all the fuss? It's not like I can do anything once I'm there. She's in the hands of the doctors who can help her. What a bunch of over reactors." I managed to get there...eventually. As I did, a man called my brother, my dad and I into a room. My sister was still hours away. I wasn't really sure who this man in the room with us was at that point, or what he was doing. I was just going with the flow, trusting they had it all figured out. And then, the words that no one ever expects to hear were uttered. They seem like profound words. They seem like they would be instantly life changing. And they were life changing, but not immediately. As how does one comprehend the incomprehensible? I don't remember the exact words spoken, as they didn't make sense. They couldn't be real. The words he spoke were something like, "They worked really hard but were unable to resuscitate. She's gone." All I could think was "Who is this guy talking about? He can't know who we are here for or why? What is going on?" But then, I saw my dad. His reaction changed it all. It showed that this chaplain, who had joined us in that small room, DID know who we were there for. And my dad, almost immediately said through the tears forming in his eyes and as he reached to embrace us, "We are going to have to stick together." Dad, while maybe sometimes emotional, wasn't in front of us kids. Daddy didn't cry. So while I still wasn't fully comprehending or believing what that chaplain was telling me, I trusted my dad and his words. We had to stick together. The next thing I remember was being told we had to call people and tell them the news. Well, in the spirit of helping out dad, I asked who he wanted called and hurried out of the hospital doors to make the calls. I called many people that day. I don't know who I all talked to, or what I all said. However I do remember parts one phone call. I remember calling my mom's oldest sister, my Aunt Lorna. She answered the phone, I told her who I was, and then I just as politely and calmly told her my mom was dead. No feeling behind it, as it wasn't yet comprehended. No emotion at all, as I was in total denial. Just being a good daughter and helping dad out by making a few calls. I remember my Aunt saying, full of emotion, "What? What are you saying?" And then, believe it or not, I remember looking down at my cell phone to see how many "bars" I had and if my service was good. I mean, what other reason was there for her to be asking "What?" except that she couldn't hear me, right? So, I said it again. I repeated it louder each time, until she finally was in such a stage of panic that she could no longer talk to me. She handed the phone over to one of her daughters, who I then repeated the message to a few times. Never once really letting it sink in what I was truly saying, or how they perceived it. My cousin asked me if she could do anything. I thought, "Hmm...I have this whole list to call," so I asked if she'd call my other aunts and let them know. The whole time, no emotion, no feeling, no nothing. Looking back on it now, they had to have thought I was insane. They were probably correct. I could have my time frames wrong, but it seems soon after calling everyone on my list, my sister and her boyfriend (now husband) arrived. So did Ben, who wasn't sure what to do as we'd only been dating 5 months, and he was out celebrating his new job that very afternoon. Thankfully he had coworkers who told him that if he really liked me, he'd come to me, and he listened. Once we were all together, we went in to see my mother. It appeared through body language that no one wanted to lead the group in. No one wanted to see what was on the other side of that door. So I, again just trying to help dad out, took the lead. It was a moment I will NEVER EVER forget. My mother, laying there lifeless, blue, blood dripping out of the corner of her mouth. Dead. The very second I saw her, an unpredicted, uncontrollable, extremely loud gasp left my body. No, not just my mouth, my entire being gasped. I didn't mean to. I knew it wasn't helpful to dad or anyone. I just couldn't help it. I had to turn away, and then back, and then away again. That man in that room all that time ago wasn't mistaken. He was right. She was gone. That wasn't HER laying there. She was gone. That was just what remained. That was the most haunting thing I had ever witnessed. Words can't describe it. I wanted to run to her, scream at her to wake up, tell her to breathe. I wanted to tell her I'd bring all the stuff from my trunk into the house to show her if she'd just open her eyes. But I couldn't say anything. I couldn't move from my spot. I was frozen with panic. Frozen stiff, just like her. I have NO idea what happened the rest of that day. I don't even remember much about what happened in the days between her death and the day of her funeral. It's been suppressed in a way that I never understood prior to the experience and never again have experienced. But the days still happened. The world didn't stop because mine had. I do remember going to the funeral home and picking out mom’s casket. And I remember my Aunt Lorna took us kids shopping for funeral outfits. How does one pick out an outfit for their mother’s funeral? It was surreal. There was a round table for four in our dining area at my apartment. The day after my mother passed away, I sat there and I wrote. I wrote to her. I wrote to God. I prayed over my writings. I cried. I cried some more. I couldn't move from that seat. I just sat there telling God I couldn't do this. I wouldn't make it through this. I needed Him more than ever. He had my mom. He was the only one who could help me through this. He was the only one who knew what my heart and head were thinking. He was the only one who could save me. And as I sat at that table, writing down all my thoughts and sorting through things the only way I knew how, He did just that. I gave the whole thing to Him. I had to. I didn't know what else to do. I wouldn't, I couldn't do it alone. And do you know, there at that very table, God took it all. He took any and all guilt I had of things I said or didn't say to my mother. He took any and all fear I had. I mean, there have been times since that I have tried to pick up some of those things. That I forget He has it. But they are short lived. I’m always reassured He indeed does “have this.” At the funeral home, the night before the funeral, I had someone read the poem I had written the day after she died. A poem of all the things she meant to me. Of all the sacrifices she made for us as a family. And a poem of all that I would miss. But as that man stood there reading it out loud, all I could think was, "Shut up. Those aren't the right words. They don't describe this at all. They're English words. They're of a language people understand. But this, this that I feel, it has no language. One can't speak of it. One can't understand it by using mere words." I also remember at the funeral home my cousin Shelly saying something about how they had just gone shopping with my mom to buy her a dress to wear for my Aunt's wedding. How my mom was so excited about it, and how no one could have guessed that she would wear that dress for the first time, to her grave. I bawled for and with her. I still tear up thinking about it. My mom was so excited for my Aunt to be getting married. It would be the first event she'd love to attend that she wouldn't have the chance to be at. The first of what I now know to be many! And those events, those are the ones that still get me at the core of my being, even today. Then the day of the funeral came. As we were led into the church full of people, the casket with my mother in it laying in front of us, there were glimpses of what was really happening. All the people crying as they looked at us, hurting for us and with us. All the people who had come to pay their respects to my mother. People I hadn't seen in years. People who usually didn't sit in the same building together, let alone the same row of chairs. People that loved her dearly and showed it, and people who I didn't even know cared until I saw them there. The horrible truth of the service with the casket, and the gravesite where they lowered her body into the ground was heart wrenching, but I was holding it together on the outside. Now anyone there wouldn’t probably define what I was doing as “holding it together”, but I was holding it together more than I wanted to be, mostly for the sake of dad. Mostly because I didn't know what else to do. Mostly because, like before at her hospital bed, I wanted to scream and throw myself on her and yell at her to wake up, but I was stuck. I had lost all ability to move in any direction, let alone forward to her. But then, at the reception afterwards, well, there were all these people I hadn't seen for years. There was no physical proof that this all was really happening. No body, no grave, just wonderful people. So the denial set back in. It came easy to talk to people, to laugh with people, to forget about why we were there, as I still wasn't sure she was gone. I would have bet any second she would have come walking in jabbing me in the arm with her elbow, putting her arm around me and laughing right alongside us. So, little did I realize how insane I looked on that day too. I mean, not until later when I found out a friend of mine who made it to the funeral, had told other friends who didn't make it, that I was laughing and having a good time, and doing just fine. A logical conclusion, but somehow hurtful. I wasn't doing fine. Not all the time. Not even as frequently as sometimes. Only in the times of extreme denial. Only when I truly thought my mom was just out of the room. Only when I thought, naively, "This can't be happening to ME!" That was ten years ago. Life has changed a lot. Early on, my father had asked me to join him for a group therapy session on grieving. I didn’t realize at the time that he likely did this to keep us together as a family. No, all I could think was I didn’t see the point. I did go once. I went and said my peace through some tears, and decided to never go back. How I now wish I would have been able to see past my own random thoughts, and would have kept going to support my dad. I wish I hadn’t been so unknowingly, and naively selfish about it all. It’s just that she was my best friend. Who was there for me now? Who was there to help me see what I should be doing? To listen to me and tell me straight up how wrong I was by not going? I can’t even begin to tell you how stupid I have felt for feeling that way. For not seeing the bigger picture of those sessions. For not seeing what it would have meant to my dad. After all, he said we needed to stick together. This was the first of me failing at doing that. You see, I read once somewhere that when you lose a parent you lose your past. Yes, you do. But you lose your future too. No, not all of it, just as you don't lose all of your past. But I lost so many hopes and dreams that day. I mean, who doesn't dream of their mother helping them pick out a wedding dress? (I went alone the first time, because the idea of her not being there was too overwhelming and I didn’t want to do it with anyone else). Who doesn’t dream of their mother helping them pin up loose hairs on their wedding day? Or of her enjoying pictures of their travels? Being there when they lose a child to miscarriage, or are bleeding midway through the pregnancy following the miscarriage? Being at the hospital the day her grandbaby, who she so desperately wanted, was born? And what young mother doesn’t dream of calling their mom to ask what to do with a two year olds tantrum that far exceeds her knowledge, but she knows her mom dealt with it with her so she'll have the answers? I don’t know about any of you, but I dreamt all these things, and so much more. My mom was a party of my everyday life. I imagined she would be well into my future. I talked to my mom on a daily basis about anything and everything. She was speed dial #5 on my phone. In fact, even today I have not been able to bring myself to put a different number in speed dial #5. No one can fill that spot. I remember, as recently as a few years ago, having a bad day, picking up my phone, and my finger automatically went to #5. I sat there for longer than necessary, looking at the screen on my phone and wondering why it wasn’t calling anyone. Then hurting all over again with the realization that there was no one there to call. So no, on that day, I didn't just lose my past. I lost WAAAAY more than that. I lost my best friend, my advice giver, Silas' grandma, parts of the future I had dreamed of, and so much more. And I often felt like I didn’t just lose her once, but over and over and over again. You see, just months after my mother’s passing, my father started dating another woman. A woman he had known from his past, but hadn’t been in contact with for years. I didn’t ask a lot of questions right away, because I didn’t think I could handle the answers. And I hoped that it would just all go away. His dating was not easy on any of us kids. And a few months after finding out about this, I started having the reoccurring dreams. Or nightmares. I’m not sure which. All I knew was that I next to never remember my dreams, but these dreams stuck with me. The dream was almost exactly the same each night. And it occurred nightly for several months, and then faded to a few times a week. I remember standing in our kitchen, where my mom and I had many deep and meaningful conversations over the years, but my dad was there, with his current girlfriend, Bev. My mom sat in our living room and as I yelled at my dad for being with Bev, my mom sat, in perfect Sandi style, calmly trying to tell me it was okay. I’d scream at my mom to stand up for herself. To not sit back and let it be. To fight for her husband. I told her tell my dad that it wasn’t okay. To tell him he was any number of obscene things. I’d scream at my dad that this had all been a mistake and that mom was alive. “See”, I’d say pointing at her. I’d tell him to stop doing this to mom. To stop doing this to all of us kids. And my mom just sat on calmly telling me, “Amanda, it’s okay. This will work out like everything else this family has gone through.” And then, I’d wake up, pissed at my dad. And angry at my mom for not being angry at my dad. And within seconds, the anger would disappear, and I’d be in tears realizing for what seemed like the first time all over again, that my mom really was gone. She wasn’t alive sitting in our family house. She was GONE! Oh how I dreaded those dreams. Oh how it hurt each time I woke up, as in my dream my mom was alive, and in reality she wasn’t. Reliving that over and over and over again was pure anguish. But those dreams did eventually stop. They stopped when I finally told my dad how I felt. They stopped when I realized that no matter how much I didn’t want this to be my reality, it was. They stopped when I stopped fighting and started accepting this new way of life. Oh how I wish now, that I could have that dream one more time. Mostly because the last time I had that dream, was the last time I remembered a dream with my mother in it. I have since resumed not remembering dreams. But oh how I’d take a different approach now. I’d study my mom’s face. I’d be as gentle as she was. I’d thank her for her kind words and yet another good piece of advice. I’d tell her that now I wish I would have listened sooner. You know, in the Bible it talks about how two become one when they unite in marriage. It seemed like a mystery to me, until the day my mom passed. In my head a marriage was not supposed to be 50/50. No it was supposed to be two people giving their all. Two whole and complete people. So how could a marriage turn them into one? But it does. A good marriage is two wholes. Two wholes that equals one. Math doesn’t always explain everything. Just like science doesn’t. Some things, like souls, are supernatural. They defy the stuff we know to be true. This was the case with my parents. I hadn’t ever seen it that way before. But they were two people. Yet in my eyes, they had always been one. A unity so tied together in my head and in my life that they couldn’t exist separately. It wasn’t possible. And you see, in that way, I didn't just lose my mother on that day. I lost the idea that my parents were not whole people without each other. Growing up, they were my parents. Plural. Two of them, together through thick and thin. Always teaming up to do what was best for us kids, even when that looked like they were just teaming up against us. Yes, I called them mom and dad individually, but it wasn't like we could easily ask one something hoping to get our way when the other one had already told us no. They were ONE! So as I worked through the grief of my mom dying, I had other grief processes to do as well. I wasn't just grieving the loss of my mother. I was grieving much more than that. We had all changed. It had literally changed us. So as much as I wanted and tried to keep us all the tight family we were, it wasn’t that easy. Now we were grieving the loss of who everyone was, and trying to figure out who all of us were now, and who we would become because of this. For example, in November of 2004, Ben was asked to go on a business trip in Pennsylvania. He decided that I could go too, as the hotel was already paid for. So, the day before we left, I called my dad to inform him of the flight numbers and times of departure and arrival, and he landed a giant bomb on me. He informed me that he had been seeing a woman for a few weeks. It was someone he had known in high school. And that EXACT moment was when the denial fell from my shoulders and I realized, not only was my mother truly gone, but my dad was a person outside of her. Then, there was Christmas. We had deeply engrained Christmas traditions at our house. Ones that even at 24, I struggled with the idea of not doing. So, I decided to ask the family if we should switch it up a bit. Keep some of the same traditions going, but maybe have it somewhere else. Give it a different feel. Maybe start a new tradition. My family seemed receptive to the idea, and my roommate was going to be gone on Christmas Eve, so my apartment, with the open floor plan seemed like the perfect place. So, here I was cooking an actual meal (not what we usually did), and in starts walking my family. We're all smiling and trying to put on our best Christmas faces and really not doing too terribly bad at it. Until, well, my dad said he just wanted to tell me something again. Kind of in the same tone he used on the phone call before I left for Pennsylvania. I braced myself. He said he wanted to let me know that he had plans to marry Bev. He had given her a promise ring and they would be married within a year. That bracing I had done, well, it wasn't enough. This wasn't what I expected. This wasn't the way I wanted to spend our first Christmas together as a family without our mom. This wasn't any easier than being at the house without her. This wasn't okay. But, it was Christmas, and he's my dad. He's a grown man. He didn’t need my permission. So, I excused myself to the kitchen, where walls still didn't divide me from him (curse the open floor plan now), and I bent down to look in the oven long enough to allow myself to let a few tears slip out, and to wipe them away. I took a few deep breaths. My illogical and selfish thoughts were that our first Christmas without mom was "tainted" by another woman. But, thanks to my brother, my sister, her boyfriend at the time (now husband), Ben, and even my dad, it got better. We had some great laughs and some wonderful times. It wasn't exactly like Christmas with mom, but it was good. It was fun. It was needed!! Parts of it were even like old times. The goofy, totally off the wall presents, like the poster sized picture of me and Ben sleeping after my Aunt's wedding. And the Bedtime Bubba Bear. Or the scavenger hunt I sent Ben on in front of my whole family that I'm pretty sure embarrassed him as this was his first Christmas with us goofballs. But there were also the presents that made us all cry. The ornament that read "I love you all dearly. Now don't shed a tear. I'm spending my Christmas, With Jesus this year" accompanied by the complete poem of Merry Christmas from Heaven (a real tear jerker!). My sister also made ornaments with a picture of mom in it. And the ornament that had her name on it. Oh, how mom loved Christmas. The angels, the snowmen, the nativity, the lights, and the Santas. She loved it all, and it made it all the harder. I could see how my dad was struggling, and wondered if I looked the same. I hurt for him despite what I then considered ill-timed announcements. I get it now though. He had to hold tight the positives going on with him to make it through this stuff. We all did! Then came our first Easter without mom. We gathered at Bev's house, with her kids. I'm guessing I wasn't the only one feeling awkward about our first holiday together, but it was my reality now, so I had to put on my big girl undies and deal with it. Between Christmas and Easter I had cried my fair share of tears. Been angry a fair amount. Talked to my sister and brother some. And even to my dad about how it all made me feel. I had wondered at times, since my dad knew this Bev woman since high school, if my siblings and I were ever really meant to exist. What if he had ended up with her instead of my mom? What if they had been meant to be together all along? I usually could conclude it wasn't so, but it didn't stop me from picking up those thoughts once in a while. So there we all were, this awkward group of almost strangers, gathered for Easter dinner. Then, when we all sat down for the meal, Dad and Bev stood up at the head of the table to make an announcement. They were engaged and would be getting married before the next school year started. I don't really recall how or if anyone responded. I don't remember because while I knew this day was coming, I once again was floored. Floored that this was really happening. I managed to make it through the day. Some sincere smiles were likely in it somewhere too. But I'll tell you what, I shut that car door and we didn't make it out of the driveway before the tears came. Before the yelling and probably even cursing just exploded out of me. Before I lost it completely. And poor Ben, who has no idea what holidays with my mother were like, before all this craziness, got stuck with all of it. Got stuck calming me down and bringing me back to earth, and holding me silently when we got home. I had guilt that I had driven my dad to this. I would tell myself it was my fault because I hadn’t gone to visit my dad more. I couldn't bring myself to step foot into the house very often. My chest felt like it would explode and my whole body ached each time I did. But he needed me, and I wasn't strong enough to be there. Someone said to me once, probably thinking they were siding with me, "He's the father. He should be protecting you." But instead of feeling like they had my back, it was at that moment I realized, yes he's the father, but more importantly, he's the husband. The man who CHOSE to commit his life to my mother. The man who CHOSE to raise a family with her. I was blessed to have her as my mother, but I didn't vow to commit my life to her. HE did. And while he chose to be a father too, he didn't look at an ocean vast with kids and pick me specifically. But he DID do that with my mom. Out of all the women he could have had, he picked HER. And she picked him! So who was I? Sure I was his kid, but I was no longer a kid. I was 23. An adult. Who was I to think that my emotional needs were somehow more important than his? That he needed my approval for his life choices? After all, HE'S the parent, not me! As a wife, I can't even begin to imagine losing the man I love. So, at that moment (accompanied by my dreams for mom), I chose to look at it differently. Oh, I wasn't perfect at it, and I still reverted back into my bassinet once in a while, but I knew he never meant to hurt me, and while I had been unable to figure it out, now it was finally clear how that was true! You see, the reality of it was, I asked more times than anyone will ever know, for God to take care of my dad because I just didn’t know how to. I didn’t know how to take care of someone who each time I looked at him my heart fell to pieces and it took forever to find them all and put them back together. I didn’t know how to take care of me, how could I take care of someone whose heart broke in some of the same ways? You know, the “they” of the world say be careful what you wish for, you might just get it. And they are right. I prayed this prayer for help for him so many times. And then, the prayer was answered. But I was too naïve and childish to realize it. I wasn’t expecting God to answer in quite that way. It wasn’t what I had pictured. It wasn’t what I had in mind. But looking back on it, God was taking care of him. God found a woman he created here on earth to work through. But wasn’t it too soon? Didn’t he love my mom? How could he jump into another woman’s arms that quickly? How could she take advantage of him like that? Why did it have to be someone from his past? Yep, my childish thoughts took me there more times than I’d like to admit. But you can’t change what you don’t acknowledge. And I wouldn’t stay in this miserable state of not knowing how this family was going to work forever. No, it’s still not perfect. I’d still like to see some things change. I’d still like to feel like Bev’s grandkids were Silas’ cousins. But you see, while our family was going through this change of adding Bev into our broken mess, her family was adjusting to the idea of us as well. I understood that sooner than most people realized I think. Even before I fully accepted what was going on between Bev and my dad, I accepted her kids. Regardless of the harsh things that were thought of me in the beginning, I knew that there was nothing stopping dad and Bev, and I knew that her kids had to feel some of the same things I did, at least a bit. And I wanted to reach out to them. I wanted to tell them I understood. But how? Oh, I tried attending one of the grandkids birthday parties once. It was awkward. I wanted it not to be. I wanted to feel somehow included by this couple who I’m sure had conversations about my dad and Bev, similar to what Ben and I talked about. I wanted to know that me and my brother and sister, that we weren’t alone in our thoughts. But, all the wanting in the world doesn’t make it happen, especially when you don’t know how or when or if it’s even okay to say that. So you sit silently, hoping it will just happen. But it didn’t. Not the way I wanted it. I think Bev’s kids are really awesome people. I love her grandkids. I truly do. And, I’ve given up on my dream of the perfect little family. Even though I sometimes feel like we had that perfect little family before mom died, I know we didn’t. We just dealt with what we had. We just loved unconditionally. And, that’s what I try to do now. To all of my family. The ones I was born with, and the ones that came to me much later in life. Bev and her family are now a part of our family. It took a while to accept that, but I made it. Because family isn’t always blood. It’s the people who are always there for you. And it’s the people you love unconditionally. Maybe in a few years, I will be able to report back how much more we’ve all grown as a family. For now though, I think we’re in a pretty good place. I think we’ve found our new normal. Our new life as a family, despite how that 23 year old defined it way back when. After all, Mitch Albom once said, “As you grow old, you learn more. If you stayed at twenty-two, you'd always be as ignorant as you were at twenty-two. Aging is not just decay, you know. It's growth. It's more than the negative that you're going to die, its also the positive that you understand you're going to die, and that you live a better life because of it.” So that’s my story. Or what parts of it have happened so far. Like the beginning, I am uncertain of how to end this, as this story is far from over. This story continues to the day I die, and then some. This story is of me and all who come in contact with me. And today, I ask that while I travel on this journey, you will all walk beside me. When I stumble and fall, as I have and will continue to do, that you’ll show grace and mercy to me, a sinner. And in return, I will do my best to do the same for you. And who knows, maybe the next time I sit down to write about this life I’m living, it might be one of you who will have inspired growth and change in me. As while I write this I realize there have been many experiences influencing me as I’ve walked these 10 years without my mother. All who have known me in these years have impacted me in one way or another. And while I don’t always show it in the best of ways, I love you all, as you are all a part of my story. May we all keep that in mind as we interact with others. May we all forgive and forget, and do better as we know better. And may you know that despite my sinful actions, the hypocrisy that is sometimes evident between the words I have written here and the things I demonstrate, I am still trying. As Alexander Fleming failed hundreds of times before his invention of Penicillin, I too fail. He learned from each time he failed. That’s what I hope to do as well. EPILOGUE (because let’s face it, I basically wrote a book here! haha) In the last 10 years I have heard from a few people about how my mother’s life and death has changed theirs. How God worked this all for the better. I am certain there are others who have not shared this as they feel it would be insensitive in some way. I assure you, it’s not. Not for me. It’s healing for me. I would love to hear from others ANY way that my mother’s passing has influenced your life. Has changed it for the better. Has inspired you or motivated you to do something different. Has given you new insight into what really matters in life. Because even after 10 years, I know I don’t have all of those answers. I know I can’t see the bigger plan that God had for all of this. And yet somehow, I know that He works all things together for our good. And I know that while He worked great things through my mom’s life, I am also convinced He has worked great things through her death. I have seen and experienced some of those things. As I continue on this journey I hope to get more and more glimpses of that. And I know one day I’ll have all the answers, and be with my mother yet again. Because you see, God is good. ALL the time!!!