Today marks one week since my Mom passed away. We miss her so much and would trade anything to have her back. Sadly, we know that can’t happen but it doesn’t stop one from bargaining from time to time in their mind. I find myself doing it almost daily.
The service is set for October 5th at 3 pm at Rockland Church a little bit up the hill in the mountains. I haven’t written the obituary yet and need to get that done this weekend. Yesterday we went through a few more cupboards and had James clean out the old food. He told me there was some food in there older than me, which is probably true. Today we need to get the refrigerator cleaned out. Again there’s so much stuff everywhere as Mom was a pack rat. I called a friend in Cherry Creek who knows any and everybody to find an antique appraiser who we’re going to call to come out to the house next week as there’s so many figurines and things that we have no idea of their value or what to do with them. Speaking of having so many of something, Mom must have had 40 or 50 pair of gloves! They’re gorgeous and vintage meaning older but she had such small hands not many women will be able to wear them. I don’t recall ever seeing my Mom in a pair of gloves! Maybe Tasha will fit in a few.
Socks, socks and more socks. There are socks everywhere! We need to go through each and every single pair as my Mom would hide things inside socks! I’ll bet many are 40 or 50 years old. I did find a few fun things like all of our kids report cards. I won’t name names but some of us could have done a little bit better in school, hmmm. I’m going to go through things and separate them so each of us gets the mementos from our childhood. Then there’s the kitchen, there are dishes upon dishes with sauce pans, old silverware from when I was a kid and little knick knacks everywhere. Some of the old knives aren’t of any real value but just old from like the 1950’s or something, like butter knives.
So (arg, there I go again), you get the picture and we haven’t even been upstairs, downstairs or in the attic. But back to Mom. As I look through the many pictures and letters, I’ve gained even a greater appreciation for the friend, daughter, wife, mother, grandmother, aunt and woman that she was. We all know how beautiful and elegant she was but what you might not have known was how religious she truly was. There are handwritten notes from her to herself about faith and God and how to live her life, just about everywhere. Like little reminders, she’d stash these in drawers, pockets of clothes and have them taped inside cupboards. These are only second to the endless stash of tissues that are everywhere. She single handily kept Kleenex in business! As I find more and more notes, you can see a theme of daily devotion to family and God. It really makes me happy to know this as even though we talked about it from time to time, I had no idea the extent of her beliefs. It’s funny as I would talk to Mom about God and religion thinking I was sharing something with her when in fact, she could have told me more than I ever know. It gives me a sense of peace knowing she’s at peace. You don’t have to be religious to find your good place, but you absolutely have to find your place. No one can run away from reality or your feelings. You must face the new reality that Mom is in heaven and move on with your life.
We all miss her dearly and I’m sure all have moments each day when a thought creeps into our minds of some moment or little thing about her. It’s hard not to break down but that’s ok. To me that’s part of remembering. I still have the same thoughts from time to time about Dad. I don’t think it’ll ever stop and I don’t want it to as it makes it like they’re still both part of me and my life. All of us will handle things in our own way but I would hope that we all find a level of acceptance and know that she’s in a good place and find our own level of peace where we can move on and live our lives like she’d want us to. Please be kind to those you love and most of all, to yourself. Don’t beat yourself up or wallow in sadness as this is the last thing she’d want. Now I’m not speaking for her but I think if any of us would just stop and think to ourselves, “what would Mom want me to do”, we’d come to the realization that she’d want us to be happy, love each other and move forward with our lives in a dignified manner befitting who we are. Remember she is watching!
Have a great day, be safe, hug your family and God Bless. Here’s a picture of our beautiful Mommy with Popcorn!
