Saturday February 5, 2011 at around 1:15am my phone rang.
It was my sister Theresa calling to tell me our mother had just passed away.
I'd gone to see her the prior Saturday and she looked good. We sat out on the porch at my sister's house for a few hours talking, enjoying the nice weather.
I had planned to go see her again the following Saturday, but Theresa called me Thursday morning and said mom had been sleeping the last two days and she wasn't sure she'd be with us much longer.
So I called in to work and Matthew e-mailed his professors and we went to MS.
Although she would open her eyes briefly when you called her name she never really woke up, and the one time I did get a response from her she didn't know who I was. That was hard. I'm torn between being thankful my sister called me so I could come see mom again, or being angry - that my last memories of her, laughing, smiling in the sun were replaced with her lying unaware in a hospital bed.
The service was Tuesday Feb 8th... also my husband's birthday. Talk about torn emotions. Death of one and birth of another - mourned and celebrated the same day. There wasn't really any celebrating though... not on my part at least. From the pictures my sister posted it seems everyone else partied it up after I left. Mom probably would have joined them - just another way I feel separated from my family.
The service was beautiful - my grandma sang my mom's favorite song - 'I Hope You Dance' by Lee Ann Womack and at the end everyone joined in and sang along.
There were so many people there. Family I'd not seen since I was a toddler. Friends of mom's I'd never met. School friends of mine and my sister's that remembered mom from when they were kids who drove 3 hours to come honor her. That meant so much.
Everyone was kind and loving - with the exception of a few who'd been in the forefront of attacking me for my post about mom and cancer. Blood relatives, at my mother's funeral and they completely, obviously, deliberately ignored me. Even through the haze of tear swollen eyes I was amazed at their total lack of class.
After the grave side service, I went back to my sister's house with my nieces. Most everyone else went to the bar to 'do a shot in honor of mom'. Maybe it's because I don't drink, or because it was taking everything I had to not fall apart but I just could see nothing honorable in going to the bar to drink and dance when we'd just put my mother in the ground.
My husband has told me if he passes before me, 'I want you to throw a party when I die to celebrate my life'. I love him with all my heart and soul but that is one wish I will not be able to fulfill.
I guess they felt like they were celebrating her life -
I felt like they were saying Mom's dead let's party!
I was talking to a co-worker yesterday. His dad passed three years ago and he said he still has moments where he'll go to pick up the phone to call his dad before he remembers he can't. His dad lived in Africa so they didn't see each other often.
When you lose a loved one, I don't know if it's harder for the people they saw every day... or people who they talked to or saw periodically.
If you live with a person every day - there's no way to forget they're gone. They're just not there anymore.
I've lived in a different state than my family for almost ten years. I talked to mom a few times a month and saw her once or twice a month - so it's normal to go for periods of time without talking to her. I wonder if that will make it harder to remember she's gone - or harder to deal with her passing.
Sigh - I was supposed to be blogging every day this month.. I think I picked the wrong month to try and do that and I have a feeling this blog doesn't make much sense, but I felt like I had to write.
I went to work for a few hours the morning mom passed, and back to work the day after. I worked the day before her service and the day after that as well. I feel like I should take time off to process everything, but I also feel like if I do I may never stop crying.
So I work, and I write - a little now - a little later - a little after that. Until I've worked my way through this and I can think of mom without it feeling like there's a vise wrapped around my chest.
Until I can be happy with the little bit of progress we DID make in our relationship over the last few years, instead of being angry that now it will never get fixed any more than it did.
One of my mom's closest friends told me at the funeral that mom told her 'I spent so many years doing stupid stuff and missed so much of Mollie's life'. She said mom told her her how much she regretted that.... I wish she had told me.
It was my sister Theresa calling to tell me our mother had just passed away.
I'd gone to see her the prior Saturday and she looked good. We sat out on the porch at my sister's house for a few hours talking, enjoying the nice weather.
I had planned to go see her again the following Saturday, but Theresa called me Thursday morning and said mom had been sleeping the last two days and she wasn't sure she'd be with us much longer.
So I called in to work and Matthew e-mailed his professors and we went to MS.
Although she would open her eyes briefly when you called her name she never really woke up, and the one time I did get a response from her she didn't know who I was. That was hard. I'm torn between being thankful my sister called me so I could come see mom again, or being angry - that my last memories of her, laughing, smiling in the sun were replaced with her lying unaware in a hospital bed.
The service was Tuesday Feb 8th... also my husband's birthday. Talk about torn emotions. Death of one and birth of another - mourned and celebrated the same day. There wasn't really any celebrating though... not on my part at least. From the pictures my sister posted it seems everyone else partied it up after I left. Mom probably would have joined them - just another way I feel separated from my family.
The service was beautiful - my grandma sang my mom's favorite song - 'I Hope You Dance' by Lee Ann Womack and at the end everyone joined in and sang along.
There were so many people there. Family I'd not seen since I was a toddler. Friends of mom's I'd never met. School friends of mine and my sister's that remembered mom from when they were kids who drove 3 hours to come honor her. That meant so much.
Everyone was kind and loving - with the exception of a few who'd been in the forefront of attacking me for my post about mom and cancer. Blood relatives, at my mother's funeral and they completely, obviously, deliberately ignored me. Even through the haze of tear swollen eyes I was amazed at their total lack of class.
After the grave side service, I went back to my sister's house with my nieces. Most everyone else went to the bar to 'do a shot in honor of mom'. Maybe it's because I don't drink, or because it was taking everything I had to not fall apart but I just could see nothing honorable in going to the bar to drink and dance when we'd just put my mother in the ground.
My husband has told me if he passes before me, 'I want you to throw a party when I die to celebrate my life'. I love him with all my heart and soul but that is one wish I will not be able to fulfill.
I guess they felt like they were celebrating her life -
I felt like they were saying Mom's dead let's party!
I was talking to a co-worker yesterday. His dad passed three years ago and he said he still has moments where he'll go to pick up the phone to call his dad before he remembers he can't. His dad lived in Africa so they didn't see each other often.
When you lose a loved one, I don't know if it's harder for the people they saw every day... or people who they talked to or saw periodically.
If you live with a person every day - there's no way to forget they're gone. They're just not there anymore.
I've lived in a different state than my family for almost ten years. I talked to mom a few times a month and saw her once or twice a month - so it's normal to go for periods of time without talking to her. I wonder if that will make it harder to remember she's gone - or harder to deal with her passing.
Sigh - I was supposed to be blogging every day this month.. I think I picked the wrong month to try and do that and I have a feeling this blog doesn't make much sense, but I felt like I had to write.
I went to work for a few hours the morning mom passed, and back to work the day after. I worked the day before her service and the day after that as well. I feel like I should take time off to process everything, but I also feel like if I do I may never stop crying.
So I work, and I write - a little now - a little later - a little after that. Until I've worked my way through this and I can think of mom without it feeling like there's a vise wrapped around my chest.
Until I can be happy with the little bit of progress we DID make in our relationship over the last few years, instead of being angry that now it will never get fixed any more than it did.
One of my mom's closest friends told me at the funeral that mom told her 'I spent so many years doing stupid stuff and missed so much of Mollie's life'. She said mom told her her how much she regretted that.... I wish she had told me.
Diane Beatrice Spiers Abshire
December 26, 1957 - February 5, 2011
