Missing my Mom

I don’t know what has triggered these thoughts, but I have really been missing my mom lately. Of course I miss her every day, but it has been a different kind of “missing” lately. I have this empty feeling inside not having my mom here.  Having a wonderful dad does make up for some of it though.

Over the past couple weeks I have had several dreams about my mom. At one point, it was 6 consecutive nights that she appeared in my dreams. All of them seem so real and when I wake up they are still crystal clear in my mind. All of my dreams have taken place in the present time, but my mom is the normal mom I used to know - she is not sick. Last week I had a dream that me, Leah and my Mom were sitting around our table, at our house and my Mom was feeding Leah macaroni and cheese. It was so mundane but comforting. I know it is silly, but I get sad thinking that my mom will never get to sit and feed Leah mac and cheese – something so simple. There have been many other dreams that we were just doing the normal day-to-day routines, but I can recall them so vividly. I’ve never been one to be into astrology, psychics or dream analysis (if there is such a thing), but it has just been strange that I’ve been having so many dreams about her. I wonder if it is her way of reaching out to me or showing me that she is okay.  

In addition to my dreams, small cues have been setting me off lately. For example, last month I was driving down 355 and there was a VERY long funeral procession traveling at a slow speed down the expressway. As I passed several of the funeral stickered cars I began tearing up and had such a somber feeling – I couldn’t help it. When I finally reached the hearse at the front of the line, full fledge tears were running down my face. I don’t quite know why I got so upset. I told Rob and he just looked at me blank-faced. Clearly, you see this kind of thing every now and then, but I’ve never had such an adverse reaction to it. When I saw the long procession I started thinking about the person that was inside the hearse. What happened? How did he or she die? I felt empathy for the family that was in the first car directly behind the hearse. I thought about all of the sad mourners that followed. I then started thinking about my own mom and could remember the day we drove in our procession line to go bury her. It was such a sad day.  

Another trigger happens when I am driving to work.  I take the Stevenson expressway and every day I pass “the” hospital – the hospital where my mom passed away. Every time I see the building, I am flooded with memories of spending long draining days by my mom’s bedside. I would get to the hospital early in the morning and stay as late as I could at night. We would sit by her and tell her how much we love her, even though she couldn’t respond back. She went into the hospital on New Year’s Eve and when most people were getting ready to celebrate the start of a new year, we were sitting with my mom making the gut wrenching decision to let her go and move her to hospice. Even though she was only in the hospital for 5 days, the time we spent there seemed like eternity. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at the hospital in the same way.

A few weeks ago, my cell phone started ringing and displayed on the caller ID was “Mom.” It took me aback for a moment, but remembered that my Dad still has her cell phone. Clearly I knew it wasn’t my mom really calling me, but it gave me shivers down my back. My dad explained that his phone wasn’t charged and he used her phone to call me. Sometimes I hear songs on the radio that remind me of her or if someone walks by wearing the same perfume that she wore, I think of her. Recently, my dad gave me a handful of old home movies (on VHS tapes) that I sent into a company to be transferred onto DVD. We haven’t watched home movies in at least a decade. I am excited to get them back and hope it is something we can all watch as a family. It will probably be hard for my dad to look back at all of our happy times without my mom here, but I think it will also bring back a lot of great memories of who my mom was. It will be great for Leah and my niece Annabelle to watch when they are older. I am not certain what is on the tapes - my mom had them labeled “Christmas 1981 – 1987” and “Summer Boating 1986 and 1987” and so on. It will be interesting to see what was captured.

I know I have blogged about my mom in the past, and honestly, getting my feelings out there definitely helps me.  I know some people are more private and might feel this is divulging too much, but it helps me process my thoughts and deal with them. I am the type of person that if I keep things inside, they will become bottled up emotions and I would probably just lose it one day. I always think to myself, if I am having these thoughts, I can’t imagine what my dad must be feeling. I do always remember that I have a wonderful family and great friends that I can talk to anytime I want or need to. It’s hard not having my mom here. I hate that I can’t call her at the drop of a hat and tell her what’s on my mind. I do visit her often and that is when we get to “talk.” Some people say this gets easier as time goes on, but for now, I can't say that is the case. It's been just over 7 months since we said good-bye. I know I'll see her again but until then I'll continue to miss her everyday.

Here is a picture of my mom and Leah around the same age. Do you think they look alike??