My second and last visit

For only the second time since my mom died, I visited her grave. I live nearby the cemetery where she is buried and drive by it almost every day, but I never stop. I'm too scared.

My visit wasn't planned. I decided to head to the grocery store, and the entrance to the cemetery is on the way. I instinctively pulled in without even thinking about it and immediately felt anxious. "Am I really doing this?" I asked myself. My car drove right to the mausoleum and before I knew it, I was sitting outside the entrance. My throat had a lump in it and I choked back tears. I took the keys out of the ignition and realized my hands were shaking and it was hard to swallow. I didn't want to go in but something was telling me I had to. I got out of my car, opened the double glass doors and stepped in. I walked down the short hallway and around the corner to where she is buried. I saw the gold letters spelling "Gail" and stopped mid-step.

I felt nothing.

All the anxiety and nerves I felt just seconds before melted away. I didn't feel sad, angry, scared, happy, sick, nothing. It was almost as if I was a shell standing there, completely hollow. I walked over to the bench in front of her grave and sat down indian-style. The mausoleum was so quiet it actually scared me, and I felt like the sounds of my breath were too loud. I took a deep breath and held it for a short while to take in how quiet, how dead it was in there. It was amazing to realize how many people I was surrounded by and not one of them breathing, thinking, living. Only me. And I felt as though I was disturbing the peace.

I don't think I lasted more than three minutes in there.

Walking back to my car, I decided I didn't need to do that again. I have come so far, and I still have a long way to go. Putting myself in a situation where I may take two steps back isn't worth it to me and I'm sure my mom would agree. Looking back on it now, I shouldn't have even stopped. I guess I felt like I had something to prove to myself, like I'm "over it" or something. I'm not. And I don't need to go to that place to be able to think about my mom.

She is not there. Her ashes are. But she is not. Our memories are not there either. In fact, they are everywhere but there.

There is not one place I have been where I haven't thought about my mom, and I feel as if she is all around me. The littlest things make me think of her, and almost all of them are goofy, inside jokes. Others are daily, every-day ordinary things that most people would never think of--at least not until the person they share them with is gone.

One thing that really stands out to me is coming home from Kent on the weekends. While most kids were ready to go out and get completely hammered, I couldn't wait to get away from studying, tests, pressure and go home to visit my mom. On Friday after work, I would head home. She usually was asleep on the couch by the time I got home so I went out with my friends. But Saturday morning was ours.

I hated getting up early then, but I would set my alarm for 7 so we could head to the farmer's market as soon as it opened. We would walk around really slow, take a good look at everything, and talk about everything that happened that week away at school. I would buy some produce and fresh pasta to take back home, and she would buy me a small bouquet of flowers to keep in my room. On Sunday afternoon when I would get ready to head back to Kent, she would sit on my bed while I packed my bags. I'm embarrassed to say there were many times when I would hug here goodbye and she would start crying. And then I would start too!

We just really loved each other. I'm not sure how else to put it. We just did.

Another memory that really stands out in my mind is the day we went to the Cleveland Clinic to meet with the doctor who was going to do her bone marrow transplant. I felt sick all day, and I was in dress clothes because I was interviewing for an internship position with the Intestinal Rehabilitation and Transplant Program so I could be closer to mom during her treatments up in Cleveland. I was not convinced a transplant was the right thing to do, although it was her only chance. I had heard so many terrible things about it that I wasn't ready to let her go early when I knew we could take her home and enjoy her time while she still had it. But eventually we knew the cancer would come back and it would end the same way. So we went to see what they had to say. While she was getting some testing done before her consultation, I went to my interview. I made it back a couple minutes before the meeting started, and she just looked at me with big eyes, eyebrows raised. "So?" she asked.

"I got it," I said. "I already filled out all of the paperwork." I wasn't sure how I felt about all of this.

I saw her cute little lip tremble. "Don't do it, Mom!" I joked. She started to cry, which usually killed me even on a good day, but go ahead and add a bald head with the emotions of that day, and it was all over. Good Lord. I knew she was proud of me, and I was very happy to have the opportunity to be closer to her and still continue my education while she went through her transplant. Everything seemed to be working out the way it needed to.

But we all know how it turned out.

Regardless, I am happy I have that day etched on my brain. That single day got me through my Masters, writing my thesis, and finishing my internship. I'm glad I was able to give back to her all the strength and faith she had in me by having this diploma in my hand. Finishing school was by far the biggest accomplishment she got me through, because not a day went by I didn't consider quitting so I could lay in bed all day and just stop. Stop everything.

Looking back on it, I'm not sure exactly how I made it through all the bullshit. But I did. I really owed it to her to get through it safely.

That cold, quiet mausoleum could never hold the raw love I have for her. It is far too big to fit inside those walls filled with strangers' ashes. Our memories are too expansive and cover too much ground. She is not there, and I could never imagine trying to force all the great things about her into that place.

I love my mom way too much to go there again.

I'm sorry it's only me

I can't remember who I was talking to about losing my mom, but they had lost their mom as well, and they said something that really stuck with me (although, unfortunately, I can't even remember who said it) : "No matter how many people you have in your life, you always feel lonely without your mom."

This is completely true.

I've been saying it for a while now, how lonely I feel even though I am lucky enough to have many friends, a wonderful husband, and a large family. I still am very sad for my aunts, who had to lose two sisters within six months of each other, and it is incredible how small our "sisters" circle now feels. What once was six is now only four, and it feels monumentally different. Aunt Janny misses my mom a lot, since they had so much in common. Of course she misses Aunt Polly too, but my mom and her were really close. Kind of like me and my mom.

My Aunt Janny is the "baby" of the sisters. My mom used to tell me that she always wanted to be a mom, and when my mom would get her work paychecks, she would buy my Aunt Janny outfits like she was her own baby. My Aunt Janny really misses her, and I'm very sorry that she doesn't have her anymore.

We went out on a date together last night. We went to one of our favorite places, where the owner knows us both. She looked at me last night and asked, "I always see you with your aunts. Where's your mom or dad?" I explained that my mom had passed away from leukemia, and that my aunts and I are very close because our group is now significantly smaller since two of us are gone. The woman said, "Well, you all have to stick together."

My Aunt Janny and I talked about this more in the car after dinner. She talked about how much she missed her sisters and now that my mom is gone, she feels like she has no one to spend time with. Her and my mom had many plans for when they both retired.

My Aunt Janny is retired now.

I was trying very hard not to cry, and even though I am still sad for myself, I just don't think they will ever understand just how sad I am for them. I don't have any sisters, and I can't imagine how sad their hearts are to not have their full circle anymore.

"I'm sorry it's only me, " I said. I know she doesn't feel as though I am second best, but I feel as though I am second best. I am not their age. I don't understand what they understand. I do not have to deal with what they deal with.

She said she feels lonely. Me too.

I wonder sometimes if this void will ever be filled for any of us. My guess is no.

I've noticed I go through ups and downs with missing my mom. It's always in the back of my mind, but some days are harder to deal with than others. My patient at work really triggered something and I have been having a hard time. Although I am starting to come around again.

Luckily, my "rough patches" are much easier to deal with these days and do not last as long or hurt nearly as much.

When I really miss my mom, I hardly ever think about our memories, as many people have suggested for me. This makes me too sad that I can't go back with her. Instead, I think about what my mom and Aunt Polly are doing together in Heaven.

My mom and Aunt Polly really liked the movie Grease, so a lot of the time, I picture them sitting in a 1950s diner sharing a really big vanilla milkshake with a cherry on top. My mom would let my Aunt Polly take the cherry. Elvis is playing on the jukebox and they have poodle skirts on. I don't picture them younger, I picture them as I knew them. Both with hair, both healthy and cancer-free. I can see them talking with all of their friends, who look like the kids in Grease and American Graffiti. (If you haven't seen American Graffiti, I highly recommend it! A non-musical with Ron Howard and Harrison Ford!)

Even though I feel extremely lonely without them, I am glad they have each other and that they are having fun. I know they are together. I just know it.

Gone for good

It has been so long since I've written anything. I read back through some of my most recent posts and am happy to report that a lot has changed since then. I have a new job which happens to be in the same field that I love but only 15 minutes down the road from my house. The patients I work with are not as high-acuity which I thought would be a bad thing but really has been a blessing.

My heart needed to heal more than I realized, and I feel as though I'm making the last several strides to get there. While I will never fully be "healed," my journey is no longer an uphill battle and I'm thankful for that.

It's funny how your brain and heart takes time to relax from your struggles...and WHAM! Just when you start to get comfortable, something rattles your cage to remind you you're not finished grieving.

Without sharing too many details, I have been in the middle of a situation in which I believe a family is giving up on a loved one rather than providing her with the proper means to be able to rehabilitate further. Just when I thought we had finally agreed on a plan to provide her with enough strength to participate in rehab, they decided to cancel it and initiate hospice care instead.

Much to my surprise, this crushed me. I truly am shocked at how I am reacting to this decision, because I knew in the back of my mind this may be the route they chose for their loved one. However, as a healthcare professional who knows personally the boundary of "too far gone" versus someone who has the potential to improve, I felt as though we could make some progress with her. I really believed in her and I was prepared to fight for her. Unfortunately, it seems as though I was the only one.

It is very crushing to be stopped in your tracks when you feel as though you're doing the right thing for someone. All I can think about is my mom.

You learn quickly working in the long-term care industry that many of these people do not have advocates. Knowing this, I do everything in my power to care for them and be aggressive in my care when it is appropriate.

Today, it was appropriate.

Realizing the intense sadness I felt for my patient when I realized I would have to put a stop to my treatment, I tried to examine what in the world caused me to feel this way. Plain and simple: I do not have a mom to stand up for anymore. And all I can do now is stand up for other people's moms. Sad. But true. The thought of my mom laying in bed without anyone to help her makes me sick, so instead of playing the whole "woe is me" card, I have decided to use this in my profession to the best of my capabilities. Unfortunately, a wrench can easily get thrown in your plans when the family decides to call the whole thing off.

Looking back on everything that has happened, I know now why I work in this field and why I care so much for my patients. It is all thanks to my mom, and although she has been gone for over a year and a half, she continues to work on me in different ways. I can't explain how immensely happy I am that we gave her a fighting chance, and although she went down, she went down with a good, hard fight. She wouldn't have had it any other way. If I am ever in her position, I hope to be half as strong and put up at least half the battle as she did.

My opinion of choosing to end her suffering has not wavered, and today only strengthened the choices we made to help her along the way. We pushed it just far enough to try and get her through her infection, but in the end, we had enough sense and love to let her leave the world with dignity and knowing she did a job well done.

Not a day goes by that I don't think about her smile or the way she used to look at me when one of our favorite songs would come on the radio in the car. I miss our shopping trips, our matinee movies, our drives to Amish country, and our Saturday mornings laying in bed watching the Food Network. I miss the smells in our kitchen, the annoyance of her hair dryer at 5:30 in the morning, and the sound of her high heels walking down the isles of the grocery store. I miss seeing her black Coach purse sitting in our kitchen, her reading glasses sitting on the night stand, and little cards or small, goofy surprises waiting for me on my bed when I got home from school.

I loved knowing that an any moment, I could call her on the phone, even if it was the sixth time we would talk that day. I miss her voice so much it is physically painful and to look at pictures of her doesn't nearly do her pretty face justice. I want to touch her and smell her hairspray and her perfume.

I want to lay on her chest in the ICU, even though she was already gone, because that was the last moment I would ever get to feel her again. I would take that moment rather than nothing at all, like now. There are so many monumental things I miss about her and so many little quirks of hers that I crave.

I hope that my patient's children who have made this decision for her care have enjoyed enough of the things I have enjoyed about my mom because when they're gone, they're gone for good.