I have endured my first Mother's Day without my mom. It was as difficult as you'd assume it would be. I spent a lot of the weekend trying to remember last Mother's Day. What did I give my mom? What did she give me? I think I remember she gave me a card, but I couldn't find it. I can't remember what we did or what I wore. I don't know if my mom was feeling well or not. I just can't remember any of it. I'm angry at myself a lot these days for not remembering time with my mom. I wish I would have recorded all the details, taken tons of pictures. I wish I remembered what she said and what we did. But I don't. I never will.
I have a video on my old phone from Christmas 2015. My brother is in town and we are sitting in my parents' living room after having opened presents. My brother is doing something weird and I am filming him at the beginning. A few seconds into the video I started filming my mom. She was laughing at my brother, and I remember wondering if my mom would be alive at Christmas the next year. I filmed her reaction to my brother and then she says a few words and then the video cuts off. I've watched that video over and over again since my mom died, trying to solidify her laugh in my mind. I want to crawl through that phone and hug my mom, tell her I'm sorry she was sick, tell her how much I admire her for fighting as long as she did, tell her how hard it is being a mom without her here with me, tell her I love her, hear her laugh again.
On Christmas this past year my mom was bald and thin. We had our annual family dinner in Fort Smith rather than Poteau to try to accommodate her failing health. I remember when I got to my parents' house for lunch I went back into her bedroom where my mom and my aunt were. My mom was lying down trying to save her energy for the meal. She was happy. She didn't feel well but she was in good spirits. She talked about trying to gain some strength back. I told her we should do something really small each day like walk to the mailbox or something to help her get stronger. She thought that was a good idea. I sat beside her at lunch. I made her a plate of food. She hardly ate any of it. After the meal, we opened presents in the living room. My mom laid in a recliner. I sat beside her on the fireplace. I worried about her the entire day. The day after Christmas an ambulance took my mom to the hospital because she was dizzy and disoriented. That night they confirmed that the cancer had spread to my mom's brain. Forty-one days later she was dead. We never walked to the mail box.
My mom has been dead for three months. I've celebrated Easter at her grave site and Mother's Day as far away from it as I could get. I don't know where my mom is. I don't feel her with me. She doesn't talk to me. I worry about what happens when people die. I know that if my mom could send me some sort of message to help me she would. I haven't received it yet. I primarily feel alone. As if someone cut the only tether that existed between me and everything familiar to me. I don't feel sad necessarily or upset. I just feel alone. By myself. Adrift. Lost...
I don't know what I've learned from all this. I don't know how my mom's death has made me a better person. I don't know the moral of this story. Maybe it's lost too.
