Hey mom.
I miss you a lot right now. I did okay the first few weeks after you died, but since last week Friday, I've really been struggling. I don't know. It's weird. Even as I write this, I'm fighting the urge to just pick up the phone and call you. It's funny how there's still that lapse in logic... how many times I think, I should call/text mom and tell her...before I stop and remind myself that I can't anymore.
When I was down in Georgia last weekend, in the middle of a field on a beautiful 70 degree night listening to country music and watching the stars, all I could think about was the fact that I'd be flying home the next day, and wishing I could make plans with you and Tom. That we could get together and go to Maggiano's or The Cheesecake Factory and see a movie at Mayfair like we used to. Or even just go walk around the mall. I loved and hated shopping with you. I loved it because I loved seeing you out of the house and in your element... I definitely got my expensive taste from you. I hated it because you took forever to make it through each store. You'd always find all these things that you wanted to buy for me, or wanted me to buy, and I'd argue with you about neither of us having the money for any of it. Most of the time, you ended up buying things for me anyway. I know it was your way of taking care of me, since you so often couldn't due to your health.
It was nice to feel taken care of.
Last night I went to a movie; Alex Cross. It wasn't a movie I was particularly excited about seeing, but I always get to pick the movie when we go out (something you always gave me crap about, too) so I just kept my mouth shut. Just the night before, Becky's mom had said something to me the night before about how, now, I would be going through a year of 'firsts'... a year of first experiences without you around... and that really hit home when I walked into the Majestic. I hadn't previously thought about how closely tied my experiences at that movie theater were to you. How I spent that awful year living with the roommate from hell in Pewaukee, and how we spent so many weekends at that theater together as a result. As I sat and waited for my food, I thought about how every single time you drove there, you'd get lost and have to call me for directions... ten minutes after you were supposed to originally arrive. It used to make me so furious. Then you'd get there, and you'd usually want to get some ice cream, or a root beer float, but you always made sure to get something for me, too. I also had a headache, which made me think about the time we went to Phantom of the Opera when it showed live from London for its anniversary, and I felt awful, and you bought me seltzer water and gave me the right medicine I needed out of that little gold pill purse of yours to make me feel better. And then I started thinking back to when Dan and I broke up, and you were first diagnosed with breast cancer, and I was falling apart; how we went to that movie at Mayfair and I had a panic attack on the way out and you held me on that bench in the theater while I hyperventilated and cried and promised me that you'd help me find a way to get my life back under control. And you did. You did help me get my life back under control. But I still have a long way to go. I still need you to hug me and tell me it's going to be okay. I still need you to make it better.
There was a scene in the movie where the mom was killed, leaving her husband and two kids behind. After the funeral, the little girl was crying on the balcony, and her dad went out to try and comfort her. He said something about how her mom would always love her, and would always be with her. I felt like I was going to throw up; I left the theater, and I locked myself in the last bathroom stall, and I cried with my fist in my mouth so that no one could hear me. I cried so hard that my throat and my chest ached, and by the time I had pulled myself together, the movie was almost over. I didn't want to go back in, so I sat in the lobby and I watched the crowds of people coming and going, and mom, I hated them. I hated every single one of them. The mothers and daughters who didn't know how good they had it. The stupid teenagers, popping their gum and flirting and jostling each other and talking way too loudly in an attempt to be cool. The married couples, arm in arm. The younger couples, hand in hand, unable to keep their eyes off of each other. I hated each and every one of them because, in that moment, they all had something that I didn't, and they didn't even know just how much they should have been appreciating it. I wanted to yell and scream at all of them. And I also wanted someone, anyone, to kneel down and look at me, really look at me, and say, "I'm sorry that you're hurting, but it will be okay," the way that you used to do.
I'm so, so sad because I used to be one of those people that didn't take the time to appreciate what they had. I know things weren't always great with our family, or with us, but I look back at how angry I was all the time, at how frustrated I was when you'd try to talk to me about how to take care of myself and keep myself healthy, and it breaks my heart. I have to navigate that alone, now, and although I can still hear you in my head, and you've given me so much to work with, there's so much more I still have to learn. You promised me once that you wouldn't give up, that you wouldn't die, until I got to where I needed to be. But I'm not there yet. And you're not here. What if I never figure it out? What if I can't do it without you?
I hate that we never got to go on vacation together; that I never got to show you Disney World and that you never got to see Hawaii. When I looked at your phone the day before you died and saw that you'd been looking up trips to Hawaii right after we got the news that you didn't have much longer to live, it broke my heart. I hate that I have no urge to go to musicals anymore, because you and I had season tickets to the PAC for the past two years, and I'm scared that going there without you will be too hard. I hate that I haven't been able to set foot back in the church since your funeral, because I miss singing, but I don't know if I can face it yet. I hate nursing my first broken heart without you; not being able to call you in the middle of the night when I can't sleep, because this broken heart on top of your death is almost, almost, more than I can handle, and you're the only person who ever knew how to make it hurt just a little bit less. I hate that I didn't take that day off of work in August when you and Amber went to Noah's Ark, because work was too busy at the time. I wish I would have had that time with you. I hate that I didn't spend more time with you, period; things were difficult, and I know you know that, and I know you don't hold it against me. I'm trying not to regret, and I'm so happy for the good times we did have in the past few years, but that doesn't mean that I don't feel incredibly, achingly, deeply sad that we didn't get to have more of them.
I miss you. I miss you, and I feel lost, and I feel empty, and I feel like I'm going through the days completely blind, with no sense of purpose. I just.. go. I go through the motions and I smile and I get through the days but all I really want to do is crawl back into bed and sleep. I don't want to face anyone. I don't want to do anything. But I do it because it's expected. I'm just tired, mom. I'm so, so, so tired, and so sad, and I don't want to be tired and sad anymore.
More than anything, I'm hoping that maybe God will let you hug me in my dreams tonight, and that maybe, just maybe, it will give me the strength to get through another day.
I miss you, mom, and I love you.
Heather
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