Nothing But Memories

 

Dear Mama,

This photo was taken on September 30, 2020.   

  We had just gotten done grocery shopping and walked over to Starbucks to grab a coffee. While waiting for our coffee I pulled out my camera and said, "Mama" and you looked up at me. I snapped the picture."

I'm so grateful that I always grabbed my camera most days when I knew we would be spending the day together, grocery shopping, going out to lunch. Looking at this picture now I would have never in a million years thought you would be leaving us in a short 28 days. Even though we just celebrated your 94th birthday 2 weeks before this I never in a million years thought I would have to live my life without you. Isn't that silly, now that I think about it. I knew you couldn't live forever but my heart and head just could never accept the fact that you would never not be here. The days get harder, Mama, the longer you are gone.

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I'm so grateful that we were blessed with so many wonderful years together. Not only were we mother and daughter, but we were friends. The best of friends. In the 67 days you've been gone I still have to try to convince myself that you are not here anymore. My heart knows you are gone because it feels broken, shattered into a million pieces, but my head, my head just cannot process the fact that I will never see you again on this earth. I will never feel your warm and embracing hug. When I'm sad I can't call you or bring lunch over and us just sit in your kitchen and visit. I just cannot accept that. And I'm so lost, Mama. You taught me a lot of things while you were here but the one thing I was never prepared for was living without you. Until the day you died, I'd never experience a loss so profound as this. Losing your mother changes you. It definitely has changed me. I will never be the same person I was before you died. I wonder if there will ever come a day where I will get use to you being gone? I doubt it. I just want this brokenness to go away, Mama. I just want to go back to that day, October 28 when the hospital called me and I went up there and sat with you before you went down to surgery. I would have done things so differently. I would of hugged and loved on you the whole last half hour we had together. The 7 hours I sat in the waiting room waiting for your surgery to be over, and the nurses were calling me with updates, positive updates. you were tolerating the surgery, you were comfortable and things were moving along good if not slowly. I hate the ending of this story. I never thought the next time I would see you later that night at 6:45 PM, that you would be gone. Your lifeless body laying on a steel table and Shelly and I kissing you goodbye. Now all I have left are memories, and your ashes I wear in a locket around my neck. it's not enough Mama. I want you back. I feel so desperate at times. Talking about it to anyone doesn't help at all. I feel like no one understands. and they have no answers to help me through this. I'm just so lost without you.

XOXOXO