It's been forever since I've written a blog and it comes down to one thing... thinking that it's not worthwhile to blog. The thing though that is bringing me back is that I go through my journals every once in a while a realize how grateful I am to have memories stored on the paper that I just can't seem to store in my head. The fact is I am sure that my memory is faulty and nothing really seems to store so I rely on other information to give it back its missing pieces. It seems like everything inside there has missing pieces, but the fact is that I want a complete bowl instead of something with cracks in it for my soup to leak through. Well in knowing that maybe something is just wrong with my memory I have decided that yeah, I don't care how ridiculous it seems to do these blogs because I'm going to need them in the coming years or even months, perhaps even tomorrow.
It is three days before Thanksgiving, which for me is a marker now and I'm sure always will be. The holidays have in the past never left an indelible imprint on me, but this time for the first year I will be left with loss. I heard a story today on NPR about traffic accidents, that 400 people last year lost their lives on Thanksgiving. I felt momentarily grieved for these people, for the broken notion that even though they may feel compelled by bloodlines to sit through awkward conversation there is a certain contentment in knowing they'll be there. okay, I can't assume all of these people had families that wanted them there, but if they did, those people were perhaps worried and scared by the missing presence of their loved one until they were then devastated. The simple fact is that now when I see something or hear something about loss it affects me in a totally different way than it used to.
Last Thanksgiving was the last time I saw my mom. She didn't actually die during Thanksgiving, but she physically died for me because I remember the last long, hard hug she gave me, the moment I last saw her smile while she wrapped her black and white scarf around her neck and said, "honey, don't stay away too long" and " I will miss you."
At the time as in most times I didn't know it would be the last but I remember thinking that it was important to remember that moment, every last detail of her departure because somehow I felt like it would be the last.
As the holiday approaches I find myself seizing up emotionally one minute and then breaking down the next. Crying during movies like The Bucket List not because I know Morgan Freeman's character is going to die but because I know the loss that his wife is going to feel once he is gone. A lot of other people have felt loss before, but up until her passing last March I was lucky to say that I hadn't felt that kind of loss, something I had actually related to a friend the day before I found out she had gone, not knowing when I said it that she had already passed.
It is hard as this holiday comes as I'm sure it will be hard the next, and the next, then the next come. As I fill in days without her, days that she should be here to tell me I'm doing something wrong or just to simply say, "I love you."
I heard her voice last night in a dream and even though it was hard when I awoke and realized she still wasn't there I was grateful for the dream. I called her on the phone to find out where she was because I was so afraid she had died already, and she said, "thanks for calling, I love you." That's all she said, there was nothing more, but in my sleep I was the happiest I had been since a point I can't actually remember - verifying my need for blogs/journaling/podcasting or something of that nature.
This Thanksgiving when I give thanks like I should but never do, I am going to give thanks for every moment I had with her. Though I may not be making her a feast this year, she will still be sitting at my table.
