Dear Momma,
It has been three Mothers Day’s without you. I feel no less ok than then and I have come to accept that it may never change. It may never feel better or ok or even minimally bearable. I will visit you and Dad’s gravesite tomorrow and relive years while standing there.
I always pray for one more hour with you both. Healthy. Happy. Before everything became so incredibly fucked up and fell apart. I can see you now giving me the side eye on my clever usage of profanity. And Daddy actually laughing at my talent of doing the same.
So today I just want to say that I am sorry. I told you this that day. I pray you heard and understood me. I’m still sorry for nothing being able to save you. As a child, the pain from not being able to say the right prayer or find the right solution to your biggest hurt after you fixed so many of mine is excruciating. I’m sorry for any second of my life that you were not proud of. I’m sorry for having a new job when you got sick who didn’t give a damn about me having a terminally ill mother and only cared that I missed a week out of work when you got sick. They made sure to remind me of this often as if it as something I could control. I’m sorry I didn’t go to college as I am sure you wished I had-though you never shamed me for it- so that I would have been potentially in a better working environment where it would have never been questioned in the first place.
If I had known things would progress so dreadfully fast I would have left it all and spent those final months hugging you. I wanted everything to stay the same. I wanted you to be the same. To be my Rock. I would tell you often to squeeze my hand and you would. When it became where you wouldn’t it depleted my hope. Because it meant the doctors were right. Everything progressing forward.
I was so tired that last week. Driving from facility to facility with no sleep. Literally falling asleep at the wheel from destination to destination. But I had big plans. They seem silly now. We were going to make healthy smoothies and do our own thing while you were in hospice care. I was going to look online and find some alternate treatments and ways to build up your appetite since no one would offer any solutions to you not having one. We would make our own miracle. I would go back and forth between your home and mine since at this time I was no longer working. I never told you. I didn’t want you to worry or even think about it. It wasn’t important compared to everything else going on.
I thought I had another 20 years to “grow up” and be able to handle losing you. No one could have told me otherwise. No, my mom who goes to the doctor, stays on top of things she needs to get tested for. Not my mom who I later found had not been feeling week for months and never said anything to me. It made me remember times I called and you were sleeping and I offered to call you back and you seemed almost adamant that it was ok-you could talk now. I wish you had told me sooner. I don’t know if it would have changed the outcome but I still wish everyday there was some secret rewind button and I could go back to that prior year and change the ending. I realize now I probably would never have taken it any differently though I do believe losing anyone or anything in an ” unnatural manner” cuts deeper.
I miss your hugs, your excitement for anything going well for me and our Sunday afternoon talks. I wish I had come home for longer stays so I could have noticed something. Maybe a weekend wasn’t enough. Maybe you hid it so no matter what I wouldn’t have noticed.
I didn’t realize that prior Christmas would be our last. You were my holiday. You were who I spent this and other holidays with throughout the year. I miss not shopping with you the day after Christmas and buying tons of unnecessary Christmas decorations. Like why do I need 6 Christmas trees and several 30lb containers of decorations *lol But every year we shopped for more to throw on display.
I remember everything.
And it still hurts. I miss you best friend. I miss every single thing about you. And I am still sorry I couldn’t fix it. I am so grateful for the time we had. But I selfishly wish we had more. Happy Mother’s Day Mom. I know heaven is blessed by your presence just as I was by having you as Mom.
Yours, Angela
