TYOFWM - Christmas Holidays

I made it through Christmas. I made it...

There was a moment there I thought I was going to lose it. I thought about Momma and just a year ago sitting at home, opening gifts... an earring and necklace set from her favorite store which she never got to wear, which I now wear... some sugar free chocolates from our local candy shop which she didn’t really get to eat and which my husband ended up eating... sitting around, laughing, looking forward to the cruise in a few weeks which she never got to go on... and, me, sitting at a restaurant on board another cruise ship, drinking a glass of wine while looking at the sunset, remembering... tears just beginning to well and that weird lump in your throat that you get... and trying to hold it together.

December 25, 2018... Christmas... She fell just 5 days later, and that was the beginning of the end... just five more days of normalcy. Five more days of having her completely in my life. Five more days at home until she returned four months later to die... this is one anniversary I am not looking forward to.

But, for now, I will savor in the fact that I made it through Christmas without having a total melt down. Taking this trip was a blessing in a lot of ways. No sitting around the house thinking of her... seeing her everywhere yet feeling her absence... I made it through... 

Now the rest of the Year of Firsts Without Momma will begin... all the way through to the anniversary of her death, and what would have been her 82nd birthday... both of which I will be celebrating at sea... on the Pacific... which supposedly has no memory... but I’ll be bringing plenty of mine to share...

The Eighth Monthiversary

Ecclesiastes 3 American Standard Version (ASV)For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.

It's so hard to believe that it's been eight months since my mother died. Sometimes the pain is so fresh that it feels as though it was just yesterday. I still have moments when tears seem to just come out of nowhere.... a memory, a flash of something familiar, a thought that I want to share with her after which I suddenly remember that she's not there.

It's sure to be a little harder around the holidays. This is the time of year with so many memories of past traditions...

We hadn't really done a real Thanksgiving in years, but this year I suddenly found myself trying to remember how we spent Thanksgiving last year. I remember bringing home turkey and all the fixings for my husband and me from the hospital cafeteria, but I can't remember what Momma ate last year... I can't remember if she even got a slice of pumpkin pie.

It's funny, but I have started to think now that's it been over six months of time more as a countdown to the first anniversary of her death instead of a timeline of how long it has been. And, I start to think of what we we were doing a year ago before the fall that started her on her downward spiral. 

This time a year ago we were planning a cruise for just after the first of the year... a cruise that would include Cuba which my Momma had always wanted to see. We'd have been gone for a month.

Right now I am planning another cruise... this one will only be for a week, but it will be the week of Christmas. I just don't think I can be home this year without Momma. To not have her with me on Christmas Eve... memories of coming home after being with family, opening up our gifts to each other, watching the Midnight Mass from the Vatican, tamales and pan dulce on Christmas morning...

Sigh... It's going to be a rough four more months...