123 days. That is how long I have been motherless. I can’t believe it has been more than 100. It has sucked. This has been the longest four months of my life. Some days I make it until the afternoon without thinking about it while on others it is the first thing I think about. It has gone from a feeling of shock and utter disbelief (although that is still here) to just plain missing her. I want to talk to her, just chat a little. I miss her voice and I’m super scared I’ll forget it. Several years ago Adam transferred all of the vhs tapes from our entire family onto DVD and saved them online. He went through hours of footage to find me the best Christmas gift I could have ever asked for. One more Merry Christmas from my Mama. It means so much to hear her say my name.

press play:

Christmas was hard. Really hard. We found some totes with gifts she had clearly bought for our children, a doctor’s dress up kit for Lainey was in there. Every grandchild got a gift from Grandma. We all gave each other beautiful gifts reminding us of her.

She used to write May The Dear Lord Bless You Today & Always on all of her cards. My Sister transferred it to signs. We have this right over the door as you leave our home.

Her favorite prayer…

We found three recipes in her handwriting!

Everyone got a frame in her handwriting…even the grands. They sit on mine and Lainey’s nightstands. Man, she was beautiful. Her smile was real.

She gave each of us a Goebel angel every Christmas (we have them since 1976). My brother continued that tradition by gifting us our 2017 angels.

Grief is a crazy thing. It is exhausting. It is physical, literally physical. There is pain and emptiness associated with it. My Sister shared something from church….Grief is the price we pay for love. She was everything to us. We loved her so very much and therefore we also hurt very much.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again….call your Mom-you just never know.  I know it may not seem like it in this post, but I am trying to focus on gratitude. I am so grateful that she closed our nephew’s door that day so he was kept safe. I am so thankful she knew my Lainey.

I am thankful she was my Mom.

We got news this afternoon. Really big news to us. I wanted to call my Mom but couldn’t. For a minute, it felt like there is no one else in the world but Adam and I. That we are all alone. This isn’t true, of course but it felt like it. My siblings and I have had had this ongoing text thread between the four of us since my Mom’s death. I did the only thing I knew to do and hopped on it and shared our news with them. There’s this weird underlying desire to share this with my Father but I’m not going to. He hasn’t earned that right in my life. He can’t replace my Mom. He can’t even come close. No one can.

We sold our Mom’s car today. I hate it. I hate it. It simply shouldn’t be. She should still be driving it. I found my baby book earlier this week and my Mom’s drivers license from 1989. I don’t know how we go about this. How we literally sort through her life’s belongings. I hate it. I hate it.

I started reading a Christian book about grief. A basic timeline of grief was referenced. They say (and I have heard/read this elsewhere) that between 6-9 months is when things really amp up and feel worse. How can it feel any worse than now, I’ll never know….or, I guess I will (in about 5 months). It also said that when you lose a loved one unexpectedly it increases the average time of grieving from 2-3 years. Three years? How in the world will we make it through?

Oh, and I just heard Lainey in the other room with her toy telephone talking to Grandma (Hi Grandma!). So, there’s that.

The news you may ask? It isn’t even relevant in the grand scheme of things. My Mama is gone. That is the only thing that is relevant. Our offer on an amazing home was accepted-that’s all it was.

Seriously, three years?

Lainey signs to Grandma one last time.