Things I Wanted To Tell Mom, Chapter 3

It took 13 days.

Everyone knows that the best place for red blooded women to cry is in the shower. It took 13 days for me to get in the shower and sob. Guttural sobbing. Sobbing out the ache, the empty, the sad. 

I kept wondering when it would hit me. Grief counselors say at this point people are generally still in shock. I've had moments where I tear up but I'm busy doing the comforting and the caring for all the people, I'm busy wearing the crown (more on that in a later post). I started to think maybe I better prepared myself than I thought. After all, I have been grieving the loss of my Mom for a few years now. The cancer really stole my Mom's essence and passion and joy and energy and fabulousness before it took her life, way before March 1, 2020. And I am my Mother's daughter, and she was (that's the first time I've used past tense and referred to her) stronger than most. I wondered if maybe because I sat by her hospice bed and cried out all the things for days on end if maybe I was more ready than I thought. I thought that maybe since I feel like I've lived an entire year of my life in the last three weeks that maybe this part was going to be easier than I anticipated. 

Then I got in the shower. I think it was a text from my Dad, a picture of his grocery cart, that brought me to my knees. In the cart was wine, Diet Coke, 4 bananas, some food, and flowers. My Dad bought himself flowers to put in a vase and enjoy at home. He bought flowers. She would be so proud of him for buying flowers. Maybe it was that glimpse into him starting to find moments, albeit brief ones, of happy that, for the first time in 13 days, made my heart ache. Allowed my heart to ache. 

I wanted to tell her that he bought flowers. And that a couple times in the last week he has sounded like maybe, just maybe he will be ok. And maybe that's why I could finally cry.

I miss you Mom. I'll start reading that book you left me, Healing After the Loss of Your Mother, now.

And the shower cry made me feel better. 

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