Nightly Gathering

Open Thread Post 94 - Feelin' It

How can I explain this? I don't want my whole identity to be “the mom whose 24 year old daughter died,” yet that has been most of who I've been, and almost all that I have attended to since December 23rd.

It is my new identity, even writing about it publicly daily, since January 8th. There is not one hour in a day except for when I'm sleeping, that she doesn't enter it. Usually it is the homesick feeling, but when that sticks around too long, I decide to just go ahead and cry and get it over with. Since I work from home, I can be very flexible as to when I'll give into it.

Sunday when I wrote about the beautiful yellow flowers and revelation that I am okay because God doesn't make mistakes, and I really know that, becomes - yes, but how can I possibly not SEE her or TALK to her for another 20 plus years?

That's why I know what they mean in any struggle; that you really just have to take one day at a time. Thinking about living so long without seeing her or talking to her again is just way too overwhelming.

I start to feel sad and pretty much embrace it for a little while. Today I did it by watching most of the COL service again. Then the extra emotion drains me. I know it won't always be intense, but that thought starts to make me sad, too. I want that, but I don't want it. It will be interesting to see when that happens. One year? Five years?

It's very very easy to understand why people in emotional pain turn to food, drugs, or alcohol. It's a combination of feeling very temporarily better and also of saying nothing matters anymore, which I fortunately recognize as a lie.

I know things do matter. I know I still want to be all the identities I was prior to December 23rd. I want to be a great wife, a great mother, a great friend, a great Christian, a great employee, amongst others. I will get there again.

I realized today I forgot to show a picture of the finished heart quilt, didn't I? Rock 3 did all of the pre-work, which consisted of cutting many squares out of many pieces of Mo's clothes I gave her. She put backing on them all then told me to arrange a pattern I liked and take a picture. There were three or four times the amount of squares necessary so I could pick any possible pattern.

I returned the pieces and she sewed them all together and went with me to the quilting store. The lady there did a fabulous job and put a picture of Mo on the back as a bonus. I hung both mini memory quilts in our bedroom today with just the Command Velcro tape. I'll probably hang them with something that looks nice in time.

I had to fold it like that because a crease looked funny across her face.

Thank you all for continuing to support me by being interested enough in this blog to read it. I hope you will share it with other grieving people if you feel like it will help them.