Mommy Dearest

I know I have been gone for a while, and many of you know why, but I decided that today and what it means to me, would be my motivation to get back to writing.

Today marks 17 years since my mom passed away. I thought it would get easier, but instead I'm realizing that the older I get, the harder it has been. I think maybe it's because I now truly understand what it means to not have my mommy around.

I won't lie, some parts of me do get jealous when I see women my age spending time with their mother, taking her on lunch dates, buying her gifts and flowers on Mother's Day, having their mothers there for them on their wedding day, having their mothers to lean on when they need a break from their children and their mothers can step in.

All of these things, I never will get to experience. All of these things, I will never have the opportunity to enjoy. It doesn't seem fair.

Seventeen years later, I still feel angry. I feel as though my mom didn't fight hard enough to stay.

I watch these movies where they show how when we're about to die, God somehow gives us a choice to come home to Him, or to return to our loved ones on earth, and as silly as it sounds, I feel as though my mom had a choice, and she chose to leave us.

She chose to stop fighting. She chose those pearly gates and streets of gold. Maybe, when she laid her eyes on Jesus, all of her cares went away.

Maybe, she was overwhelmed with such peace that she convinced herself that her children would be okay, and that her husband, my father, and the family she left behind would take care of me and my sister's heart.

It's difficult having to put on a smile, when I am so broken inside from my mom's death. It may seem on the outside that I have it all together, but honestly, living without my mommy has been the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I struggle with my inner strength daily because now, my daughter is at the age where if she sees me crying she wants to know what's wrong.

I've convinced myself that I have to be strong for her, so if I need a moment, I lock myself in my bathroom with a towel over my face to absorb the sound of my cries.

Sometimes, even I cannot accurately describe what's wrong, so how would I get a five year old to understand.

Some days I just start crying and it can be triggered by anything. Something as simple as a flashback of my mom and I playing word-find puzzles in my parents bedroom would make me cry. The song "Fragile Heart" by Yolanda Adams, brings me to tears.

Somedays it's just the words of a song or a verse from the Bible. Other days, it's absolutely nothing, and I would breakdown.

The last time I went to "see" my mommy, was the day after my sister's wedding last year May. We took some flowers from the ceremony to lay on her grave, and my sister and I both broke down. I hadn't visited my mom's grave in years, not even after Sapphyre was born. I was avoiding her. Avoiding all the emotions and the pain that had built up all these years.

I think up until last year, the last time I visited my mom was the day of my aunt Lincy's funeral, my mom's sister, which was in 2010.

It wasn't until I started High School in September of 2001 that my mommy's death really hit me. The transition from primary school, where I had my mom right up to almost the end of that school year, to High School or Junior High (as many would call it) to not having her around at all, was so hard for me to wrap my mind around.

March 19, 2001 my mommy left behind two daughters, aged 10 and 7. I remember so clearly, that it scares me sometimes, the last time I saw her which was when she was leaving Eleuthera to go into Nassau to seek medical attention.

Thing is, that morning, I almost didn't get to say goodbye to her. It was not yet time for me to be up to get ready for school, I was in grade 6; but, for some reason I was up early and just as she was walking out the front door, I walked into the living room.

I remember what she was wearing, how her hair was fixed, the red lipstick she had on that she ALWAYS wore, and how she smelled. These memories are embedded in my mind. I remember her smiling at me and telling me she would be back soon; but, she never came back.

I know persons always say, if they had known it was the last time they'd see a loved one, that they wouldn't let them go, they would hold them a little longer, express their love to them, but, I believe that regardless, if for instance she had missed her flight, God would've called her home to heaven at some other time.

Maybe she would've died in my bedroom all while patting my back to get me to sleep or maybe she would've had a heart attack right before my very eyes. I think that sort of trauma would've been much worse for a ten year old.

The thing is, God still protects us from what he knows will harm us. My mom died in the hospital on another island, away from her children. God didn't want us to see that. He wanted our pain to be as less tragic as possible.

And, although I know this to be true, the human side of me, still needs someone to blame.

The thing is, as I've mentioned before, I've experienced death many times. I've experienced the death of my maternal great-grandmother, who died in the house right next to my grandmother's and my mom, being a nurse was there. I remember me asking her to see the body that was already under a white sheet, and she pulled back the sheet and let me have a look.

There was also the deaths of my paternal grandfather, paternal great grandparents, and my maternal grandaunt, all of whom I had wonderful relationships with, that I experienced. So you see, death was not something new to me. It was not something that I could not understand.

All of these losses I experienced before my mother's death. All of these losses I believe helped me to cope with my mother's loss and in some way prepared me to handle losing someone else I was close to. I already had the knowledge that when someone dies, they do not come back, but that it is important to honour them by remembering them and their legacy they would've left behind.

However, when it came to losing my mom, I always wonder why it couldn't have been someone else's mother. If God knew he was taking our mother away from us at such tender ages, why did he give us to her in the first place?

Maybe, our births was our mother's greatest joy, and as a servant of the Lord, maybe he saw fit that she received as much happiness as she was willing to give others.

Maybe, our mom's death was somehow our strength.

Maybe from my 10.5 years spent with her, God saw it as enough time for me to learn how to parent like her (though I do slip up, ALOT). Maybe her death later on in my life would have been more tragic for me.

Maybe God knew that if my mom was still around my life would've been much different than the life he had already planned for me.

Maybe, God's plan was perfect.

#death #coping #mourning #pain #acceptance