red shoes

There are 5 kids at my house right now. Only two are mine. Emerson has friends who are triplets and I'm over here striving for some normal for my kids so we are in the 'taking calculated risks' category of quarantine life. I made lunch, got sunscreen on them and sent them out to play. And it hit me. My Mom is dead.  I lived it. Got the call from Dad, 'This is it, you need to come today'. Flew in. Moved her from hospital to hospice. I sat by her hospice bed for 5 days. I talked to her while she slept. I saw her after her spirit left her physical self. I know  my Mom is dead. But, like, do you think she's ever coming back? I mean how is it even possible that she's just gone? It doesn't even make sense. She has been here my whole life and now I'm supposed to do life without her? Hello, Denial. Nice to meet you. I haven't read a lot about Grief or the stages of it but I know Denial is one of them. I'm not sure how much reading about it will help ...

I asked Grief to go out with me again. This time we went on a walk. We walked back through the hardest and worst day of my life. Birthdays were always a big deal when I was growing up. Bounce houses and ponies. Pictures up and down the stairs and streamers. Surprise visits from my Godparents. A HUGE cake in the numbers 1 and 6 delivered to school. In my adult years I sent flowers to my Mom on my birthday. After all, she's the one who did the work (hope my kids take notes when they read this some day). We celebrate big. I don't know any different. I turned 39 on February 26th. On February 26th we moved my Mom into hospice. The place where she would leave this world. I didn't find hospice to be this amazing place everyone speaks of where peace finds you and you leave with angel wings. Hospice looks like a nursing home. It looks like stale coffee and cookies and Shasta soda. Couches are like dorm furniture, uncomfortable and likely in need of a cleaning. No one turns light...

Grief and I haven't gotten acquainted just yet. We haven't had time, not sure we've even been properly introduced actually. My Mom died on March 1st. On March 2nd I flew home and the days that follow are blurry. My in-laws were here for a few days helping with the kids. I know people brought meals. I couldn't tell you what the meals were or what came from whom. I know I played a tennis match (that we won). I know I was in shock. On March 13th my kids came home from school and never went back. That's why Grief and I haven't met yet. I went from blurred shock to survival mode. Three kids at home all the time, with the rugs ripped out from underneath them. All their normal thrown out the window and for how long? And what will normal look like when we do find our footing again? Things I am still searching for answers to. We had to find our new normal where school was on a computer or non existent if you're 4 years old. And where electronics time skyrocketed ...