Something changed in me today.
I immediately thought, “I woke up different.” So I set out to find the meme I’d saved by the same name.
It’s beautiful. But it’s not quite fitting.
Luckily this other meme came up in the same search.
I guess it’s really not a meme. And it’s really not what’s in my head. But it’s not like there’s a perfect platitude when you’re just a girl who’s lost her mom.
What I mean by waking up different is sad (of course) but almost hopeful.
Almost Hopeful should have been the title of this tome.
Mom’s been gone almost 90 days. And it really took till today for me to realize, she is not coming back. Not in the human form, anyway.
And maybe, just maybe, I will be OK.
My cousin is farther along on the grief express. Her mom died on Sept. 22. (And her baby was born on Sept. 26.) So she’s shipping them all to Tokyo for the remainder of the month.
Here I’ve been trying to figure out how to get through Mom’s birthday. Thanksgiving. Christmas. And a whole new year without her.
I hadn’t thought much about the anniversary date. Father’s Day.
Now I’m starting to wonder if I’m not thinking big enough.
Like, I am just trying to figure out how to get through the holidays without her famous stuffing balls.
And I give myself that grace. Take one holiday or milestone at a time. Try not to notice there’s an absolute fuckload of events after those to navigate, too.
I don’t think Mom would hate if I went to Disneyland Tokyo on the big anniversary. Or maybe she would because she couldn’t stand my Japan calls. Disneyland Paris?
Anyway, maybe I didn’t wake up so different after all. But the word “acceptance” keeps rolling around in my head.
I know why, though.
I still dream about her every night. She is always young and vibrant and laughing and zany and adorable.
And it hits me that, while I only have a few photos of her over the past 10 years, she never looked all that healthy in any of them.
Always in pain. Always faking it. Always saying she felt good enough to do whatever adventure I planned.
Memories can lie. Cameras, not so much.
So my dream Mom comes to me around age 30 to 40. And I love to see it.
Mom & Maddie when I traveled. Found this in my grandfather’s wallet next to a baby picture of me.
That’s kind of where the acceptance comes in.
I accept that she clung to a life and a body that held on as long as they could, and maybe even a little longer because of her sheer optimism and hope.
I say that about Cocoa, that I probably gave her a good extra year with the medicine. And Momma had always countered that I probably gave Cocoa four extra years, as that’s how long I had her.
We never saw kitties at that ghetto Target again. Who knows what happened to them. But my baby Bella is a healthy 5-year-old now. And Cokes got 15 years’ worth of love in her short four years.
Cokie and Grammy wanted to stay. Their bodies just wouldn’t let them. And I loved them both out, the best I could.
Maybe it’s time to start forgiving myself for not doing more, and loving myself for what I could and did do.
To love is to be vulnerable, saith C.S. Lewis.
And to manage not to put up my “Don’t Treadmill on Me” sign on my Teams profile is to be a goddamn hero.