Odd how I can easily write about almost anything but this. Each time I try I fail and stop. Revealing too much can be a really awful thing I have extensive experience with. But there is no one around, and no judgment to fear so whatever. Over and over can you die from sadness and despair, runs through my head.
Today was a nice and cool fall-like day. Skies were grey and a nice breeze flowing through the trees. I sat for hours outside soaking up the silence at moms. Silence is nice until it becomes a trigger for memories and the weight of loss. This is a peaceful and mostly quiet neighborhood and I just know life was happening all around me for some although I couldn't see it. No one knows if I am alive or dead and this is my life now.
My love for mom's house runs deep, it's home and there could never be another. As I look around I see things that mom used to talk about like the tree that needed pruning, the fence-mending, her roses blooming. All these things are comforting to be near then almost instantly I am reminded that what made this house a beautiful warm home is now gone forever.
I've struggled over what to do with two houses when I hardly use much of one. I've left everything unmoved in mom's house and can't bear to think of anyone else living here but can I live here? Next month it will be a year since mom left this earth.
I've managed to excel at many things I was highly unqualified to do but now and with this, I feel trapped in a world I no longer recognize. It's warm and inviting in this home but without mom sitting in her recliner and wanting to know all that was going on with me it's hard to imagine my despair getting anything but worse over time.
I haven't moved a thing and can hardly walk into her room. When I walk through the hall I do look in there and almost as quick I have to turn away. That is after a year. Her favorite shirts and her shoes and walker everything is where it was and I can't wrap my head around moving forward enough to figure out what to do with much of it. Some 10 boxes or so I gave to Goodwill but the remainder is this really personal stuff and I just haven't been able to make myself do much more yet.
Sadness and depression are exhausting. I can feel the weight in my chest. A recent health diagnosis that ordinarily would have sent me into this emotional tornado is now just another thing to deal with and has to be a part of God's plan to end all this just sooner and differently than I had expected.
My mom always told me when I felt this way to stop and go do something for someone else. She was so wise and had such a beautiful heart and soul. She was a cook and a cake maker and a dressmaker. She made wedding cakes for family members and made my sister's wedding dress saving them tons of money. There are checks written to her that she never cashed for some loan she gave to almost every family member. There are every spice and seasoning in the cupboard in the kitchen and all have their place and she could have told you exactly where they were and what to put them on and how much. There are pots and pans and measuring do-dads and appliances and fancy mixers and on and on. It's all still in there put away nicely and organized as if she was coming back to make us dinner again. If you had a cut or a pain she had every fix that has ever been made and it's all still here right where she had it and she knew where it was. She always told me a place for everything and everything in its place and there is evidence that she lived that way her whole life in every corner of this home.
Using writing as a purge sometimes works for me to some degree and maybe it has here. This rollercoaster of emotions happens and then it has no place to go so it wells up inside and because I have no other way of dealing with it I often use writing to let some of the pressure off.
May God bless and care for others going through things right now and may he light the path for all of us to find our way.
Amen.
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