Today is my Mom's 61st birthday.
This morning as I was getting ready for work, I told myself that it was okay to have a good day today. It was okay to enjoy the day, to celebrate, to be happy. As I thought about this intention I set for myself, my emotions wavered. How can I find good in today when I've been robbed of my Mother?
Since leaving for college, there were many birthdays that we didn't celebrate together, but I always sent a card and filled it with compliments and love and told her that I wish we were celebrating together or that we will celebrate the next time we're together. In all those years I never imagined that our time was limited, that she would leave this life so damn early.
I posted the below on FB for her last birthday Earth side in 2014, just about a month before I visited home and instinctively knew that something was really wrong with her health. She was gone 6 months later. This was my last birthday wish to her...
Happy birthday to my beautiful, wonderful, loving and caring Momma! I am so absolutely blessed to have you in my life and thank my lucky stars for you each day! I am beyond grateful that you were a stay at home momma while I was young. I have so many great memories of those days! :) Thank you for being a great role model to me, thank you for loving me unconditionally, thank you for always supporting me and thank you for always being there for me! I will always be your little girl! I love you so much, Mom!
I hate that she's not here, that our relationship was a little messed up and rocky before she passed, that I didn't get any big, last words from her. She was just gone without any closure. I hate missing her, I hate the pain of the grief. I hate not feeling her in a spiritual way. And I really hate the days like today where everyone is going about their life, but I am drowning, just trying to keep my head above water.
BUT, I am trying so hard to open my heart to finding joy and gratitude today. Today I can celebrate my Mom and her life. Today doesn't have to be sad, but I am allowed to be sad. I can spend the day with a lump in my throat and red eyes (or a runny nose and tear streamed face), but I am also allowed to feel joy and happiness. I can be grateful for the time I had with my Mom, even though it was not enough. My last birthday words to her still ring true. Truer than true. Maybe even more so now than they did that day.
I don't want the day to go by without doing something in her honor, so tonight we will toast to my Mom with her favorite drink, a fuzzy navel, and listen to oldies. We will celebrate her birthday like she's with us, because maybe she's closer now that she ever was those years that we were apart.
This morning as I was getting ready for work, I told myself that it was okay to have a good day today. It was okay to enjoy the day, to celebrate, to be happy. As I thought about this intention I set for myself, my emotions wavered. How can I find good in today when I've been robbed of my Mother?
Since leaving for college, there were many birthdays that we didn't celebrate together, but I always sent a card and filled it with compliments and love and told her that I wish we were celebrating together or that we will celebrate the next time we're together. In all those years I never imagined that our time was limited, that she would leave this life so damn early.
I posted the below on FB for her last birthday Earth side in 2014, just about a month before I visited home and instinctively knew that something was really wrong with her health. She was gone 6 months later. This was my last birthday wish to her...
Happy birthday to my beautiful, wonderful, loving and caring Momma! I am so absolutely blessed to have you in my life and thank my lucky stars for you each day! I am beyond grateful that you were a stay at home momma while I was young. I have so many great memories of those days! :) Thank you for being a great role model to me, thank you for loving me unconditionally, thank you for always supporting me and thank you for always being there for me! I will always be your little girl! I love you so much, Mom!
I hate that she's not here, that our relationship was a little messed up and rocky before she passed, that I didn't get any big, last words from her. She was just gone without any closure. I hate missing her, I hate the pain of the grief. I hate not feeling her in a spiritual way. And I really hate the days like today where everyone is going about their life, but I am drowning, just trying to keep my head above water.
BUT, I am trying so hard to open my heart to finding joy and gratitude today. Today I can celebrate my Mom and her life. Today doesn't have to be sad, but I am allowed to be sad. I can spend the day with a lump in my throat and red eyes (or a runny nose and tear streamed face), but I am also allowed to feel joy and happiness. I can be grateful for the time I had with my Mom, even though it was not enough. My last birthday words to her still ring true. Truer than true. Maybe even more so now than they did that day.
I don't want the day to go by without doing something in her honor, so tonight we will toast to my Mom with her favorite drink, a fuzzy navel, and listen to oldies. We will celebrate her birthday like she's with us, because maybe she's closer now that she ever was those years that we were apart.
