I don't know where time gets to, but I do know one thing - time has not erased the fact that I continue to miss my mother each and every day.  Many days are still a struggle.  A struggle to remain upbeat in my thoughts and actions.  My daughter will be fifteen this year...my mother will be gone for seven years. SEVEN years.  I am not sure which astounds me more, the fact that my baby will be fifteen or that my mom has been gone seven years.

I wish I had some profound words to say to you about moving on.  Because I don't.  I fight, daily, with the fact that my girl is grown up.  I fight, daily, with the fact that I miss my mom very much.  If I could have one do over, it would be to be able to have that last phone call with my mother again.  There are so many things that I would like to ask her now.  Things that, seven years ago, I didn't know I needed answers to.  What are these questions?  I'd like to know what my mother's life dream was.  What did she want to have accomplished in her life most...and did she fulfil it? Did she enjoy being a mother?  Did she regret anything in her life?  Is there something she wishes she did that she never got around to?  Did she dread her children growing up like I do?  Sigh.

She has a great grandson now.

Death sucks.  Death hurts the people left behind.  My dad is ready to die.  He has trouble walking and every day is a struggle for him.  I'm not ready to lose him, I'm not ready.  I'm not ready. I'm not ready.

A Long Road

A dear friend lost her mother.  When I heard I cried tears of great sorrow.  I cried because I know the pain my friend was feeling at that moment and I know the pain she has felt every moment from that day until now.  I also know that she has a long road ahead of her.  I don't exactly know when I felt "normal" again.  I'm not sure I ever will.  Mom is gone from this earth and her death has left a gaping hole in my heart that nothing, not even time, can fill.

Grief really is like the tide.  Some waves are bigger than others, but there are always waves.  That is how I feel about the death of my mom.  There is always grief hidden under the surface.  The thing is, to look at me you wouldn't think that.  There is always pain.  I think that is one of the harder things to accept -  once time passes the people around you tend to forget that you are still grieving.  That, somehow, you are "over it".  You never are over it, you never recover. 

I pray for my friend, daily.  I pray that she will always know that I remember.

But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.  For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep.  For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.  Therefore comfort one another with these words.

 1 Thessalonians 4: 13-18