No Love Lost

In all the love that I have lost, one of the most powerful to overcome is the love lost between people who are still here. When you realize that you have to let go. I think that is where time heals all wounds because you know you will be okay, you know there will be tomorrow. 

Just know that at some point through the pain there will be a day it is all irrelevant. 

Filling up

"Stress makes you believe that everything has to happen right now. 

Faith reassures you that everything happens in God's time."

Since my Mother's passing there hasn't been one day that I haven't felt hot tears run down my face. I have never been much of a crier but I can’t tell you how much that has changed now. I am getting better with time.

  I am learning to let myself cry. I use to love to be alone but for 2 months after my Mother died you couldn't pay me to be alone. I had someone around me 24/7; most of the times even in my sleep. For the past 2 weekends I spent substantial time alone. During the week at night I spend a couple hours to myself. I find myself finding myself again.

 I was standing in darkness in a room filling with water. At first I lay on the ground and watched as the room filled and flooded with water. I did not attempt to help myself, I didn't attempt to stand or find a way out. I am not out now but there is a window that is there now, and it is open. The room is now only halfway full and I can breathe and I can see again. I think you need to go through the darkness with no rush to the light. Allowing yourself to fall, allowing yourself to mess up to feel the bottom because then you will never fear it. Because of all I have lost I do not fear loss, I do not fear the bottom. I know what empty feels like but yet I am here. Little by little I am feeling again. My heartbeat is returning. Little by little it gets louder.

 But I do not rush it. I bask in every ounce over empty. I have faith I will one day return to full, that one day the door of the room will open and I will be whole or as whole as I can be.

There will always be something missing but one day it will just be a hole in my heart and not my whole heart.

Testing Testing

One of my best friends is having a birthday party on the 20th of this month. I want to attend but I wonder if there has been enough quiet time? I wonder if I am strong enough to fight the sadness in a room full of people celebrating. I go in and out of happiness these days and I don't know if I won't want to numb. You cant be sad at a birthday. *eye roll*

I don't want to get drunk ... nothing is worse than a sad drunk. Ugh spare me. Maybe a classy tipsy? It's also the week before Christmas and I plan on cooking... 0__0 pause for reaction. I cook I do and I am pretty good at it, but I am attempting baked mac and cheese, my Mother’s recipe. I am nervous and scared but determined. I want it to kind of feel like it used to for my family.

Maybe I will buy her dinner and not chance this encounter of the drunken kind. I don't want to be under a table or anything. It isn't me.  But it’s beyond hard to be out with people who are the way you use to be… carefree, normal. You feel like that for a while and then you remember, your mind goes to that dark place and your smile fades. People ask you what you are thinking about as if there was anything else that crossed your mind in that way....

Alcohol numbs that pain and in the last 3 months I always need someone to talk to, someone to lean on, something to drink, some place to hide... someone to understand me. Now I am getting back to just needing me.

I lie a wake

I lie awake for most of the night before my Mother's wake. I woke up everyday that passed hoping that I was in a nightmare and that some how some way if I prayed hard enough that I would be able to turn back and change what had happened. I questioned God and my faith… I questioned my Mother and her love for me. I just couldn't get around it.  I couldn't get it threw my head.  I mean I prepped for it and made the decisions hoping that I would wake up from this horrible dream. But I never did.  

I haven't seen my Mother since the day before she died. Not at the hospital not in the morgue. Everyone was already home by the time I got there, so seeing her in her casket would be the first time I had seen her in two weeks. It was the longest I had gone since I was born that I hadn't heard her voice. I woke up and took a shower and picked a dress out of her closet to wear. I wanted to be closer to her and I don't know why but I figured it would help me feel closer to her. It was her funeral dress and although my mother and I do not wear the same size I felt I needed it more than I needed to look nice. At the funeral home they allowed a few minutes for the family to be with her alone.

I was fine the whole day the whole time until we walked in that room and saw her. I broke down and I screamed "No" all over again. I wasn't ready to say good bye I wasn't ready to not have her. I just wasn't there and I never would be. I sat in the first row in front of her casket confusion. I put on a brave face but inside my heart was broken. I never loved anyone or anything as much as the person laid before me. I was upset with her for not staying for not waiting for me to say goodbye for not sticking to our plans. For not loving me enough to stay. My Mother was so strong I knew that she could have fought God but she just went with him and it killed my soul. I had one wish that entire day and that was to crawl into that casket and go with her. I looked so brave on the outside but that was because I didn't care anymore. Whether I lived or died no longer mattered to me and I wanted to latter, I prayed for the latter. I was upset with God because he took her, because he didn't let me say goodbye and because he didn't let me go with her. My Mother always let me go with her. I felt like she gave up and she wasn't suppose tot give up on me on us. So many friends and loved ones came that day and showed her support. So many coworkers came.

The funeral parlor estimated between 400-450 people came that day. It was a lovely service for a lovely woman. My best friends came Linda, Mari, and Monique. College friends came and showed support to myself and my family. It was a day I was proud of her and just wanted to hold her hand. It was the worst day in a line of horrible days. That night I came home and I laid down and took my sleeping aids and went to bed just to not have to think about what was waiting for me tomorrow.

Plaque

Today was my Mother's Plaque Ceremony. She was a NYC Probation Officer for 23 years. On my first day of kindergarten she started her first day of work. She put me in a school that was literally 2 streets away from her job, she could see the school out the window. My Mom was that kind of mother, always kept us near.

They retired her badge, and had it mounted on a plaque to honor her. She is one of the first probation officers to get her badge retired and not have died in the line of duty. It is a complete honor. But I cant shake the feeling that its like reliving her death over and over; its been almost 3 months. I didn't attend, neither did my father. I know it might sound callous and rude but I am just beginning to heal. I have spent the last two month pretending she hadn't died. I am not strong enough to go back there yet. I need to get in a good space first for myself.

I have just in the past week stop drinking every. single. day. or drinking until I literally pass-out or throw up when I go out. Its like running from emotions, Always needing to go out and do something to occupy your mind. I have never brunched, drank, ate, went out as much as I have these last few months...maybe since college. I need to find me again. I cant numb the pain the way I have been, nothing goo will come from it at all except a pattern.

I want her to be proud not scared for me.

Together in food

I ordered liver and onions with mashed potatoes from a diner near my home. Now I am not 60 years old but it was something that I have always liked. My Mom loved liver and onions and so there for I ate it. My brothers would probably jump off a bridge if it even came near them but again two peas in a pod, right? I ordered it Sunday and portioned it out for lunch on Monday and Tuesday.

Doing simple things like eating meals that we would have shared and being able to just make it a meal, just eat it. It felt good. It was a step. 

So on Wednesday I took it a step farther and bought Butter Pecan Ice cream. I have to say that I am a Butter Pecan snob. I do not like Haagen Daz, or Breyer's or Blue Bunny or Food Town brands.

My favorite brands thus far are ................ America's Choice and Baskin Robins. Judge not...they are amazing. 

It was my Mom's favorite ice cream and one of the last things we ate together. 

Steps even if they seem baby to some is a world for me.

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The Club

Losing your mother makes you apart of a club, a club you never want to be apart of yet you can never be apart of the world you once lived. There is a pain latched to your every memory and to every happy moment and thought. You will cry out of no where without "reason". My heart goes out to you and my prayers are with you in this moment of immense sorrow and pain. May your support systems not fail you and the relationships you have forged be your strength. Hold on to your partner and your children oh so tight.

Todd Tucker and Kelly Rowland

Welcome to the club you never want to be in but will always belong.

On to Business

In the next few days and the next couple weeks it was all business. I woke up in the mornings and took a shower talked to my brothers and my Dad. In those moments I knew the importance of family. Not just the ones you are born into but the ones you create. My brother's girlfriend Laura was there for the whole 2 weeks of hell. She called out of work and went with us each and every place and was there to comfort my brother. She was also the person who found my mother when she fell in the bathroom and the person who rode with her in the ambulance. For that I will forever be grateful to her.

My younger brother his best friend Jenielle was there from day 1. We took my friends back down to the city and picked up clothes from my brothers apartment and picked up Jenielle. She also moved in for the next two weeks. Going back and forth between school and our house.

Those women provided a constant comfort to not only my brothers but to my family (my Dad and myself). It also highlighted the missing portions of my life. My Mom and I were kind of two peas in a pod, I was either texting her, calling her, or talking about her. I lived at home and never even took dating serious. I didn't know if I wanted to get married or have children but what I did know was I wanted to be with my Mom. The weekend before she died we went to BJ's and ate ice cream in the rain after we discovered we could order it threw the Dunkin Donuts drive-thru. She was everything to me. Now that she was gone I felt like I had nothing. Everyone else had built up in other parts of their life but I had only concentrated on one real area. With that area and support gone I was lost.

But the lost feeling.... well I wasn't able to really explore it as I now was the person who made all the decisions. Everything having to go threw me. Having to do things you never thought you would have to... picking out a casket, the lining, the plot for her to be buried, the cemetery, the church, the picture for her prayer cards, what she was going to wear. The world was so surreal, I was on auto pilot. Trying to be strong for my Dad who was lost. After almost 28 years since they met and 25 since they married he didn't know what to do. My Dad is 51 years old. He has spent over half his life with my Mom and now the thought of not is consuming him.

Its hard to be around him. My Nana wants to be the head of the ship making the decisions and being apart and now every family member was my Mother favorite. It was almost comedy. I know my Mom and as amazing as she was.... everyone wasn't her favorite.

But I guess these are the things you find interesting in times like this.

The Day

The day my life changed started like a normal day.

My mom had been a little loopy the last few days but we chalked it up to her fibromyalgia medications. I got up and got ready for work, taking one of the last rides with my neighbor and friend before he moved to Florida to start a new life. I got in the car and headed down to the city to get on the train. We talked we laughed and right as I was about to get out of the car my phone rang. As someone whose phone rarely rings with a phone call especially from my brother at 6:45 AM I quickly picked it up. He told me that my mother had fallen; because of how loopy she had been I wasn't completely alarmed. He said he called the ambulance and that he was waiting for them to get there. I told him I was getting on the train to work and to keep me posted. I got on the train worried but not overly concerned. I got to work turned on my computer and my phone rang again. It was my brother telling me that my mothers heart stopped in the ambulance. I was numb. I put on a new out of office, I sent and email to my bosses to let them know I was leaving for the day and ran to grand central. I called my best friend who assured me everything would be okay, but the knot in my stomach would not be tricked. I was standing at the machines to buy a ticket to take the first train back home when my phone rang again. My brothers voice breaking in sadness on the line as he told me "Mom died". All I could do was to scream no. Breaking down and falling on to the floor in the middle of Grand Central people rushing around me but my world had stopped. People tried to help to comfort to see what was wrong, but all I could do was scream. I felt like I was falling into a black hole. My best friend, my teammate, gone. I wanted to die, It was the first time in my life I ever wanted to die, that I ever prayed to die.

I was taken to the waiting room in Grand Central by the police and cried on a woman's shoulder as my best friend was called. Linda works in Queens but told the officer that she was on her way. I cried for over an hour. My Co-worker turned friend Shami called so many times that I had to pick up and when I told her what happened; her take charge personality she told me she was on her way. She sat with me while the shock started to come in. Then my Linda came and then my Mari came, college friends turned family. They rode the train with me, they went home with me. They were there when my dad broke the news to my youngest brother. But the whole day I operated in shock.

When night fell, so did the tears. I couldn't sleep and my friend Sal brought me natural sleep aid pills that I would take for the next month to be able to get a decent nights sleep.

As I closed my eyes that night I only could think to myself..."now what"?

Day 1

Hello

On September 17th 2014 I lost my mother; one month after her 54th birthday.
She was my rock and my angel, in her absence I became the rock for so many others.
Being the rock without a rock was overwhelming.
Turning into a mother to an entire family was exhausting and numbing all at the same time.
Watching your father become helpless, your brothers introverted, your family asking your opinion on everything... It makes you hide your feelings.
Tears fell but I wasn't dealing.  I was there for everyone, but who was there for me?
You have friends and family but no one that you can constantly be sad to, people want you to move on.
So I didn't cry unless I had to , and when I have to cry I take a shower.
Today I am starting a blog to heal to deal and to help.
This is my story.