just one more

A couple days ago in an emotional storm, if I'm completely honest, I was thinking that I wish I had just one more minute with my mom. Maybe just a few more moments to say all the things and to hug and kiss and hold her one more time. I could look into her eyes and make certain she knew it was OK if God was calling her home that I would find some way to be alright. Just one more anything-

2019 will go down as the toughest year I could imagine. My mom's beloved cats Rocky, then Susie passed away a few months apart and I who has massive emotional issues with death in general but with pets, oh- I was there when they took their last breaths and had to bury each of them along with a large part of my mom's heart-

Mom found this brother and sister after their mom had disappeared just after they had been born. We think maybe someone poisoned the mom cat but we don't know. These two were tiny and were crying for their mother and my mom became that mother and hand fed them with an eyedropper until they could eat on their own. They took a place in her heart that was open to anyone or anything that ever had a need. That was who my mom was to everyone that ever knew her and I've found papers and cancelled checks and cards written to her by almost everyone she knew thanking her for that help.

We spent weeks and late-night vet hospital visits and round the clock hours tending to the cats in the weeks just before they passed away and my mom knew they were giving her the last times she would have. Those little balls of fur lived with mom for 18 years, a long life for a cat and they gave her as much as she gave them and then they left our lives. Mom always did that too, she would give everything she had if you needed it and often did and then after 92 years and the last few spent with a lot of physical issues, God said enough and called her home and she left my life to find a purpose and a reason to go on.

Some days I look for that reason and some days I'm just too tired to look. If only I had just one more hug, one more sweet kiss on my face, one more look from those eyes- This is what my heart aches for and will never have. This is just one of those days that hits me out of the blue and then I hopefully will find something else to focus on and pick myself up. There is still much to do and sitting here like this isn't productive I know. I refuse to try to force myself out of this memory purge that I do on days like this because I'm certain it's part of the process and I will just endure it and let it do its thing.

It's Valentines Day 2020 and it's cold outside about 36 degrees. I'm hungry and I'm exhausted and I'm the luckiest old man that has ever lived to have had a mother like mine. My daily goal is to not continue to crumble but to get up and go forward with whatever gusto I can muster and always make her proud. Maybe one day I can reach my goal and extend them to becoming someone who can help someone else. That is what she would want me to do.