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I had a post ready to share with you all on how I felt going through each season during that first year. But nothing felt right. I'm also not sure if this post is going to be "right" as well. But I try and make sure I share my feelings as much as possible, because I never know who it's going to help. I started this post right after the one year mark of my mom passing, but little did I know things would change.
Each holiday without seeing and hearing her has been hard. It's not even the big things that get to me. It's those small things that I wish I could go back and do with her or hear her say to me. The run to the store for this or make sure Bailey has that. The conversations after she's spent all that time in the kitchen cooking, me now wishing I had been in the kitchen with her even more because I'm trying to figure out her sweet potato pie recipe.
When my mom got diagnosed with lupus, everything was still okay and I thought well this is just something that she is going to live with and we will figure what medicines she needs. She's not the first in our family that had/ha lupus. My dad had plenty of health issues that he was dealing with so I knew she could too. In the next few years her health went down, we moved back to Arkansas so I could be closer to her and help as much as I could. I will say it was hard seeing this woman that never seemed to stop, being forced to slow down.
By the time she went into the hospital the last time I pretty much started grieving. I didn't know at the time that's what I was doing. I would go see her on days that either my dad couldn't or we would split the visitation hours for the day. At the end of every visitation hour, I would come back home and cry while in the shower. I found myself crying when I couldn't pick up the phone and call her the 500 times a day we would talk. By the end of everything I was at peace with her not suffering anymore.
I went through the next few weeks on autopilot. What so many thought was me being strong was just me having prepared myself before everyone else did. I planned my mother's funeral from the top to bottom. I could look at my dad and tell he couldn't do it. He had lost the woman he was married to for almost 40 years. Being the only child, I had to make decisions I knew my mom would be proud of. While also making sure it was more than acceptable for what I thought my dad would want if he had the ability to take care of it himself.
As you all know by now my dad died two days before Christmas completely unexpected. But you'll get how I'm feeling about that in the next post.