Pissed

So 2 years ago this week my mother was diagnosed with cancer, and I'm finally angry.
I have watched patients suffer from cancer. I have been with friends when they have died from cancer. I have watched co-workers struggle to help loved ones with cancer. I have watched cancer completely tear apart families and bankrupt people. I have watched hearts break from cancer.
I'm angry......I'm pissed.......I want to blame someone, something.......I want to break something.
My mother was diagnosed 2 years ago this week with cancer, and she was dead by September 26th. How is that possible? Why is it possible? What the hell are we doing?
Why are so many people made to suffer?
2 years later........I'm finally pissed......

Mercenary

I have been making plans to sell my mothers house in Wanchese. It is just a house, right? Financially, it has been difficult for me to maintain. I have been feeling the need to simplify my life. Everyone has different opinions for me...."keep it until the housing market comes back", "sell it now", "rent it", etc. I feel strongly at this point it is time to put it on the market.
So I have been making plans to sell my mothers house. Intellectually, I know what to do. Emotionally, I'm a mess. This little house, in this little community, was my mothers delight. She loved her house, she loved her neighbors, she loved her community of Wanchese. I loved that she lived there.
So I have been making plans to sell my mothers house. I'm the sentimental kind. I'm having a hard time detaching from the emotion of selling my mothers house. I miss her so much and this seems mercenary. Which reminds me of a Little Feat song.......we both loved that band......but I digress.
So I'm making plans to sell my mothers house. It makes me cry.  

angel

For some reason, I stopped writing this blog. It's not that I don't think about my mom everyday. It's not that I don't cry for her.

On exactly one year after my mothers death (September 26th 2011), the Redskins played the Cowboys. How fitting, I know she was watching. The Redskins lost, lol.

That morning Rockett, Dawn and I paddled out into the Pacific Ocean and put white roses in the ocean in her honor. Talita took pictures. Maybe one of those roses made it to Hawaii. She loved it there.

A little over a year after my mother passed away, we spread her ashes in the Atlantic Ocean, along with her beloved dog Ruth. Friends came and put flowers in the ocean while Victor and I took Momma Flora's and Ruth's ashes out. Friends came to the house and we ate, drank, played music and told Momma Flora stories. We sat on the deck on that beautiful night. Around midnight, we toasted her. As we raised our glasses and looked up towards heaven, a shooting star flashed overhead. It was a "made for movies" ending. She deserved that.

I've have now gone thru 2 sets of holidays without her....one surgery......one hurricane.....marriages........births......deaths.......a new hair cut.

Tonight I really miss her. I am an orphan. But I do have a new angel on my shoulder.

Hats, Scarves and Mother Stories

What a gorgeous day today.......tomorrow, should be a cold wind. As people pull through their warm clothes they find a hat or scarf that Momma Flora made.

People stop me and ask how I'm doing. They ask me what I'm doing for the holidays. They tell me about their own mother. How they survived their first holiday after their mother passed. They tell me how their mother is still here but in ill health. How they miss their mother's cooking. Everyone has a mother story. Mother stories surround me. People feel compelled to share mother stories with me.

The holidays are here. They are all around me. Just like the hats, scarves and mother stories.

sea change

So this is a hard time for many people and it resonates in me. The holidays are coming. I'm going thru my mothers mail..... and it feels like it will never end, this constant flow of things to address.

I'm supposed to be the strong one, the one to take care of things.

Right now I feel like a little kid in a riptide. I'm swimming, swimming, swimming and still getting pulled out. I know I'm supposed to relax, swim parallel to the shore, it will drop me out. But I'm feeling like I'm going under and I need to fight it. What in the world am I doing??

Grief is not new to me, but experiencing grief without my mother is new. We always had each other in the toughest times. She was always there for me. Now I feel a little lost...well that's not true.....I'm really lost. Thank God for my friends, they have all been amazing.

I'm seeking my level, my normal. I hope there is a sea change soon.

On a small day in October

While I still struggle with my mother's loss, this week set the Outer Banks reeling with the loss of "Steve the Dream" Thomas and Ron Mcknight. Both of these men passed away, one from cancer and one from a surfing accident. I knew both of them, not well, but we were friendly.

Ron I met in the water, on my surfboard. He was always kind to me, rooting me on when I actually caught a wave. Giving me encouragement and he was always positive. If he hadn't seen me in the water for a while, he would ask how I was. Interestingly enough, I don't think I ever saw him on 'land'. But in the lineup we would chat about his life and my life. I counted him as a friend.

Steve was a performer. But he was a sweetheart with a beautiful voice. I met him personally when he was studying voice under Ruth Wyand. He loved his children, he loved music, he loved surfing. He was always kind to me. They were both, always kind to me.

On the same day that Ron's friends paddled out to celebrate his life, Steve lost his in the water. It was a small day in the water in October....2 kind souls were called home.

'normal'

So you always think that when you get thru the crisis, people know your mother has passed away, it's time to move on, stop writing the blog and get "back to normal". We all know that "normal" is a relative term (especially for me). My life will never be "normal" again. It has changed and will change in ways I have yet to discover. Being so close to my mom was a blessing....and sometimes now feels like a curse. I miss her this morning. Not that I haven't missed her, but I really miss her this morning. There are so many things I need to tell her. And yes, I know she's here with me and I talk to her all the time......I just wish she would talk a little louder because I can only faintly hear her in my memory. Telling me how it sounds like 'right timing' and 'listen to your instincts, they are good' and 'one step at a time'.

I was never completely 'normal', she always encouraged me to live my own life my own way.

I wonder what 'normal' will be now.