6 months seems like such a long time--but also only moments ago.
There are times when I am "blessed" to forget. Times where everything is moving forward, things are good, they are happy and plesant and I forget.
But I don't like to forget.
It makes it feel unimportant.
But it's not. It's forever important. Because to me, she was important.
Aggravatingly like that "you don't know what you have until it's gone" phrase. I don't know what comfort anyone finds in that phrase. Personally, it makes me an angry person to hear it. And hearing the "things happen for a reason" bit is just as bad.
"Yeah, she died for a reason. Because she was sick." I wanna shout, venomous and pained followed by a string of expletives.
Sometimes I'm not angry though. Not sad.
Sometimes I sit in a state of almost forgetfulness. It's strange too. How it's reflected in our language. The way we speak about her.
The tenses are the weirdest part.
I wonder if they, her family, notice them the way I do.
The simple exchange in present tense that I sometimes, internally, painfully, find myself correcting.
They will say, "Mom loves these." I think, Mom loved these.
"Oh man this is totally mom's style." This was mom's style.
But then sometimes, the reality strikes in and I find myself saying things like: "I would get this for your mom." The would as an impossibility instead of an uncommitted plan...
I've been crying on and off all week about how much I miss her.
How much I really want to hear her telling stories at the dinner table again.
Her "oh!" Exclamations before she would tell a story of a jaunty but hauty youth.
The "you are welcome to stay for dinner" comment that stopped being a question the second time I came around.
Her joy at hearing updates on the lives of people she cad about. Near and far.
I'm sad because I miss her openness. I miss her wisdom. I miss her ability to charm people but also to alarm them. I miss her snappiness, her wit, her careful observations.
I miss her positivity, her faith. They way she believe in the workings of the universe and in Catholisim in a way that was balanced and true.
I could go on and on but I'm tired.
There is sunlight creeping out over my keyboard now, and I like to imagine she's looking down on me, and everyone she loves, smiling as we do our best to trudge along in the world without her.
Walk. Not trudge.
Somehow I feel like she wouldn't like trudging associated with her in any way.
In times of sadness, when there is no happiness to be found,
Lean ever into gratitude.
Today, I am grateful for:
1. Having met the whole Bell family.
2. Having Kathleen as another mother figure.
3. That somehow, even if it's in tiny little bits, there is still sun poking through the clouds today.
