A Motherless Mother's Day

This is my first Mother's Day without my mom and I was sure I was going to boycott the holiday completely. Walking around stores and seeing Mother's Day displays and all the Mother's Day commercials have really made me angry these past few weeks. Although I am a mom, the person I celebrated for the past 33 years is no longer here so in my mind there was no reason to celebrate. I was sure I was going to spend the day alone and in tears feeling sorry for myself.

A few days ago I came to the realization that it would be selfish to be miserable on Mother's Day. My mom wouldn't want that, she would want me to celebrate the fact that I am a mom. And I realized just because my mom is no longer here doesn't mean she can no longer be celebrated. We can still honor her and remember the 33 years of memories we did have together.

Mother's Day was always when we would kick off our family barbecue season so I decided we would have a barbecue on Sunday. We can keep the tradition going. Part of my decision to have the barbecue is a bit selfish; I figured it would be a great distraction from the profound sadness I know will be in my heart that day. Having family and friends around plus catering to our guests will keep my mind somewhat occupied.

Sunday is sure to be difficult and I am sure a good amount of tears will be shed but being alone isn't going to make things better or bring her back. I am going to try my best to celebrate her and hope she is there looking down on me with a smile on her face. Happy Mother's Day Mom!!! I miss you more than I could ever express. I love you!!! xoxo

Unfocused

I am trying to stay strong. I am trying to get on with my day to day but it is as difficult as you would imagine to try and move on with life. I suppose I should be easy on myself considering it hasn't even been a month since we found my mother dead but I want to be able to move on and am having a hard time.

One of my biggest obstacles right now is trying to stay focused on tasks and it is a daily, moment to moment struggle. I feel like I have a million half finished projects and it is really hard for me to complete anything. Something that should take me a few hours is taking me a few days because no matter how hard I try my brain is all over the place making it next to impossible to stay on one particular task for too long.

Sometimes my thoughts wander to the fact that my young, healthy mother is gone in the blink of an eye and how she won't be around for holidays anymore or how she won't see Olivia or my nephews grow up. Her grandchildren were her world and it would have broken her heart if she knew she would never seen them grow up. Then I think of that horrible morning. I can't help but truly hope her death was instantaneous and that she wasn't lying on the floor knowing she was dying. That is the one thing I fear the most and cannot stop thinking about. Those thoughts haunt me and probably will for a very long time.

Besides losing my mom, my husband, daughter and I needed to pick up and move in with my dad. My mom was his 24 hour a day caregiver after his multiple strokes and I needed to come and fill that roll. We didn't want to change too much on my dad so we don't even have a bed in the house yet and are all living out of suitcases. I feel like I don't even have a home. Because we needed to jump right in and fulfill this role I feel I had no proper time to mourn, I needed to immediately figure out all my dad's medical and day to day needs and get right to it.

So I suppose it is normal between the mourning of my mom and my move and complete lifestyle change that my brain is a bit fogged although, I wish it would clear soon. I have a feeling I will be dealing with this for a while, though. Everyone keeps telling me to slow down and just take care of my daughter and my dad and not worry about anything at least for the time being but I am self employed. I work from home and the second I slack I can feel it. I am a hustler and my clouded brain is making it hard for me to be the mover and shaker I normally am.

I think I am going to try just setting one attainable goal each day to not get myself overwhelmed but to also help me finish projects. I think I have too many things I want to accomplish I just keep bouncing from task to task but in reality I am not really accomplishing anything. I need to start small until I build up my mental strength again. I just hope that slowly I can become the girl I once was.

This post was linked up to Little Friday, A Rules Free Link Up.

What To Do When Your Best Friend Is Dying

I have unfortunately lost two best friends in a span of 5 years. Hasn't been a good few years. One of my friends lost her battle with Cystic Fibrosis and my other friend lost her battle with Breast Cancer.  They both were already diagnosed when I met them so I did not have the difficult task of figuring out what to say when diagnosed but I do have a little insight on how to treat a friend who is terminally ill.

 This post is going to focus on my friend J who passed away 5 years ago in June from complications of her Cystic Fibrosis. When I first met J I had no idea she was sick, she was so vivacious and full of life. She came to my job after not working for a while and I thought it was just a case of someone who quit and then after regret set in asked for her job back. We instantly related and were constantly in trouble for talking too much. Hello high school! Haha.

After a few weeks I learned that she didn't work for quite a while because she was sick but at that point I still didn't know quite how sick. I finally found out she had Cystic Fibrosis but still had no idea what that meant exactly. She finally explained to me that she was dying. The life expectancy of a CF patient was mid twenties and she was now in her late twenties. She told me about a party she had had because she had 6 months to live and how that was two years ago. She was defying the odds, I mean she rode a motorcycle for Christ's sake, how could she be sick?!

I actually moved in with J for a short time after her lung transplant and all this girl wanted to do was party. She was a fire cracker! Everyday she was ready for an adventure and I was lucky enough to go along for the ride. I feel that people who are terminally ill fall in one of two categories: those who are to depressed to live the life they have left and those who are going to get every bit of fun they can out of the time they have left. J was obviously the latter. Don't get me wrong she would get depressed once in a while but then again who wouldn't.

We would talk everyday and I did a lot of bitching about our job, which she was no longer at for health reasons. One day while complaining about my manager I stopped myself and said "I am so sorry, here I am complaining about work when you had an important doctor appointment today." She then said to me: "That is why I love hanging out with you. You don't treat me any different. I feel normal when I am with you. I don't want people feeling sorry for me, I want people to talk to me as if I was completely healthy."

We didn't talk about her sickness often because I don't think either of us wanted to face the fact that our fun together was limited but it worked for our relationship. Don't get me wrong, I visited her in the hospital and would always ask for updates on her health but then it would be on to normal bitching, complaining and talking about the next party. So many people focused solely on her because they didn't want to seem selfish when she had much bigger problems than all of them. All those people meant well, they truly did but it just made J focus on her illness when all she wanted to do was lead a normal life. I was her normal.

It's never easy when a loved one is dying but the only thing I can say is be there for them, give them help but also remember to treat them as if they were healthy as much as possible. They want to hear about your problems and triumphs, they don't want to feel as if nobody wants to share anything with them. And of course, my experience isn't everyone's experience but this is what I learned along the very difficult road.

In memory of J 2/28/78 - 6/18/09