missing Mama

Tracy / September 10, 2013

This week has been just plain hard.

I keep thinking it will get better.  I hope it does soon.

I have been going through my desk this week.  A good bit of what was in my desk is what was in her desk.  In an effort to put it away, we had placed everything there.  It has taken me this long to want to go through  the contents.  So many of the things in  that drawer would probably be meaningless to most people, but were things she had for years.  Her favorite coaster.  The pen inscribed with  the place she had worked for so many years.  They were just little things.

I sat, sorted, and cried.

These months have been horrible in many, many ways.  There are dozens of questions I would like to ask now- some things she had told me were going to be an issue when she was gone, some I had no idea and I don’t think she knew.

It’s all been so much.

My youngest children still ask and speak about her every single  day.

Emma asked if all of us were to die, where would she go to live?  I thought how sad she would think to ask that question but then, her grandmothers are both gone, she does have one grandfather left-  I felt so bad for her.  I shared how the Lord has blessed her with so many siblings, she would always, always have a home.  She seemed comforted.

Meredith told me she missed her again this week.  She tells me she knows she is sleeping now.

Benjamin has slept with me three nights this week.  He likes to share his favorite memories of her with me.  I wonder sometimes if she could have possibly known how much he loved her?

Most days now, I’m able to avoid crying.  I try not to bring her up much because I know everyone is hurting.  There are some days, when it just happens.

For the longest, I didn’t dream about her.  Now, it seems I dream of her most constantly.

In my last dream, she was sitting in my family room telling the children and I, she had brought some special rolls for lunch.  She was  explaining to me what she wanted me to cook dinner.  She gave me the smile she would give when she was really excited about something.

I looked at her and realized her hair was long again and she didn’t seem so bloated.

I instantly became sad and told her she wasn’t supposed to be here.

She stopped talking and walked over to sit on the table in front of the sofa where I was sitting.

When she sat down I noticed now her hair was short again.

She looked heavy-hearted and I sobbed into her hands.

I miss my mama so much.

I miss living in an oblivious state to many of the things I now know so well.

I miss being able to pick up the phone each day and talk with her.

I miss our almost constant texts.

I miss seeing her holding one of my littles and laughing with them.

I miss hearing her, though I am blessed to have some recordings of her laughing from family videos and one she had made of herself just talking about some things in her life.

I never mention my mama to my grandmother, but every few visits, she will ask again if she has passed.  It grieves me to have to sit, be strong, and tell her yes.

Even this many months later, there are still things left undone.  I’m trying to work through each item.   They seem impossibly huge at times.   One step at a time, I guess.

So many folks tell me they just don’t understand how she could have been gone so soon.  I think it is a shock to them.

My family are the only ones who ever saw her sick.  We are the only ones who saw her in the last weeks.  If I’m honest, I feel angry maybe because I think I needed someone else to see what was happening.  I feel weary.  The burden of watching her fade was lonely, and horrible.     The grieving has been just as lonely- maybe more.

Well, that’s me this afternoon.  It’s hard to explain this pain of losing your mother.  I really feel like I lost my father years ago.

I feel like I have a big gaping hole in my heart right now.  Please be praying the Lord would pour His comfort out on our home.

This is the song that keeps playing through my head this afternoon:


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