Dear Mom,
I've been bottling things up again. I have waves of good and bad days, and I guess in recent weeks I've just kinda been...rather than anything else. The last week or so has been one of tremendous stress and upset, and I think that is having an affect on me.
Last night things came to a head and I lost it. I was listening to music with Tim and I just started to bawl, unable to stop the tears running down my face. Certain TV shows open the wounds just slightly, touching on a death of a mother in main characters' lives, and how they interact and respond to it...it's like ripping off a scab. It bleeds, and still hurts, but not as much as the regular injury.
My heart is still broken and I still cry when I think of it. Of you. And of the last words we spoke to each other, which were I love you and We're Ok and We're forgiven. I remember after David left, Dad and I walked hand in hand down the Boston street, and we decided that you needed to hear that we gave you permission to die. You were hanging on for us, and we didn't want you to hurt anymore. We walked to the room and we said we knew it sounded stupid to hear but we wanted you to know that it was OK to go. That we loved you, didn't want you to hurt anymore. We knew you could hear us and we knew how ridiculous it was that we gave you permission to die...your brain still worked, you had cognitive function...and here we were, telling you to die! We cried so hard when we told you that. It was for the best, and we didn't know what else to do. We didn't want you to suffer. Never wanted to have you suffer. And we sounded like idiots.
Those final hours, I sometimes can't remember them. Sometimes they are clouded. Other times I remember them as if I lived them yesterday. I remember your voice, but sometimes it slips away from me. I still want to call you and get your advice on things, and it takes ALL I HAVE not to call your old cell phone, which is still programmed in mine. I can't yet delete it as a contact. I'm trying to be ok. I'm still mad at a lot of things. Trying to find forgiveness and grace and love in a world that has left me broken and unable. There's just a lot of little things. I miss you more and more each day, Mom. I don't like not having you around. I still needed you here. And you were taken from me. That's the part I really hate.
I love you, forever and always.
Love,
Christy
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Sunday, April 17, 2011
10
Dear Mom,
It was your birthday on the 8th. I spent most of my day thinking of you. In recent weeks, months, my feelings have become more moderate. I am able to generally get through the day without too much anguish. For your birthday, I was on my honeymoon in San Francisco.
I made a decision that I think I will do forever after now: I will have Ben and Jerry's and a Starbucks to celebrate. We have a picture of you, taken a few months before you got cancer, sitting outside eating a B+J's ice cream and drinking a Starbucks coffee. It is one of my favorite pictures of you, because you look so happy. Smiling. Those were two of your vices, I think, once you took that healthy diet/life change and cut out some of those "unnecessary" calories. So Tim and I got a Starbucks coffee for me, and we both had some Ben and Jerry's. Tim took a picture of me posing with these things. So everyday for your birthday, we'll eat that.
I was happy on your birthday. It was a day of happy memories, glad times and while somewhat sad since you weren't there for me to call.
Your headstone was finally finished, and has since been placed over your grave. You would like it, I think. It has musical notes and a rose on there held with two hands as if in prayer. It was something dad worked on, and it is perfect.
I haven't felt you around me in the last few months. This could be because I'm starting to finally accept your death, or maybe it's because I'm handling things better. I sometimes still laugh because I seem to see you in strange places. You'll sometimes turn off my radio if I hear a song that makes me sad or think of you and cry, and I say thank you. I am handling things better now than I used to. I think all of us are, though I worry a lot about the people I love.
As usual things are always changing. I try to tell myself that it is OK and that I can handle life without you, even though I hate it. My grieving has changed a little in the last six months. Your half year mark left me feeling depressed and sullen. People who knew me were concerned. So they asked me what they could do, and I told them why I was sullen. They just said they understood (the woman in particular I am talking about lost her mother a few years ago as well, and understood better than most).
It is weird to feel happy. It is truthful happiness, and not the fake stuff I usually do. I am truthfully happy, and that is so unlikely and so unusual that I don't know what to do with myself. Anyway. That has been my life. So take care up there in Heaven, and know that we down here still love and miss you everyday.
I love you, forever and always.
Love,
Christy
It was your birthday on the 8th. I spent most of my day thinking of you. In recent weeks, months, my feelings have become more moderate. I am able to generally get through the day without too much anguish. For your birthday, I was on my honeymoon in San Francisco.
I made a decision that I think I will do forever after now: I will have Ben and Jerry's and a Starbucks to celebrate. We have a picture of you, taken a few months before you got cancer, sitting outside eating a B+J's ice cream and drinking a Starbucks coffee. It is one of my favorite pictures of you, because you look so happy. Smiling. Those were two of your vices, I think, once you took that healthy diet/life change and cut out some of those "unnecessary" calories. So Tim and I got a Starbucks coffee for me, and we both had some Ben and Jerry's. Tim took a picture of me posing with these things. So everyday for your birthday, we'll eat that.
I was happy on your birthday. It was a day of happy memories, glad times and while somewhat sad since you weren't there for me to call.
Your headstone was finally finished, and has since been placed over your grave. You would like it, I think. It has musical notes and a rose on there held with two hands as if in prayer. It was something dad worked on, and it is perfect.
I haven't felt you around me in the last few months. This could be because I'm starting to finally accept your death, or maybe it's because I'm handling things better. I sometimes still laugh because I seem to see you in strange places. You'll sometimes turn off my radio if I hear a song that makes me sad or think of you and cry, and I say thank you. I am handling things better now than I used to. I think all of us are, though I worry a lot about the people I love.
As usual things are always changing. I try to tell myself that it is OK and that I can handle life without you, even though I hate it. My grieving has changed a little in the last six months. Your half year mark left me feeling depressed and sullen. People who knew me were concerned. So they asked me what they could do, and I told them why I was sullen. They just said they understood (the woman in particular I am talking about lost her mother a few years ago as well, and understood better than most).
It is weird to feel happy. It is truthful happiness, and not the fake stuff I usually do. I am truthfully happy, and that is so unlikely and so unusual that I don't know what to do with myself. Anyway. That has been my life. So take care up there in Heaven, and know that we down here still love and miss you everyday.
I love you, forever and always.
Love,
Christy
Sunday, January 9, 2011
9
Dear Mom,
2011 is upon me. Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's is all over, thank goodness. I missed you every second. I still think about calling you, often. Your number is memorized in my brain. I suppose I could call you...but I couldn't handle hearing messages from you, or from listening to your voicemail message.
Christmas was the hardest other than Dad's birthday. I kinda lost it then. I got the most fantastic gift, which you've already seen/known about. JB made me a BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL quilt. Wait, let me explain. JB and family visited you in summer, before you got sick. When they heard, JB started working on a quilt for YOU, FOR YOU, to have and old during radiation/chemo/treatment to remind you that the Lord is Good and ever faithful.
Then you died. That's not your fault. The quilt was put on hold for the grief, and she decided that it would be a nice thing for me to have. This quilt is amazing, Mom. All swirls of blue and green and sea colors -- the color of the ocean by Cousins Island. And bursts of bright oranges, pinks and yellows -- to show YOUR BRIGHTNESS AND LIGHT through it all. There are quotes and verses from your funeral and other things reminding me that He is good...even if sometimes I don't like it or get mad at Him or whatever.
I am plugging along. I started wearing your anniversary band a few weeks ago. A constant reminder of you, not like I really need one, but still. I tried wearing your bands and your diamond as well for a while at Christmas but it was too hard. I couldn't do it.
I miss you constantly. All the time, everyday. I wish I could ask you for advice. Sometimes I do, and you must hear me all the way up in Heaven because sometimes I ask you for a sign you're there or if you're still around to visit. Sometimes I don't get them. But on the days I really need it, you talk to me. Like the time on my lunch break I was having a hard time and asked for a sign you heard me talking to you in the car--and I saw that fortune cookie paper in my purse and what it said. I smiled. And Willy's radio being all...twitchy over bumps...I was talking to you then too, and at the crux of it, the worst and saddest part, it suddenly turned on to a song relevant to what I was thinking and feeling about you! I like these little things. They make me happy. I should probably go get some breakfast now, so I'll leave you with this small offering today.
I love you, forever and always.
Love,
Christy
2011 is upon me. Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's is all over, thank goodness. I missed you every second. I still think about calling you, often. Your number is memorized in my brain. I suppose I could call you...but I couldn't handle hearing messages from you, or from listening to your voicemail message.
Christmas was the hardest other than Dad's birthday. I kinda lost it then. I got the most fantastic gift, which you've already seen/known about. JB made me a BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL quilt. Wait, let me explain. JB and family visited you in summer, before you got sick. When they heard, JB started working on a quilt for YOU, FOR YOU, to have and old during radiation/chemo/treatment to remind you that the Lord is Good and ever faithful.
Then you died. That's not your fault. The quilt was put on hold for the grief, and she decided that it would be a nice thing for me to have. This quilt is amazing, Mom. All swirls of blue and green and sea colors -- the color of the ocean by Cousins Island. And bursts of bright oranges, pinks and yellows -- to show YOUR BRIGHTNESS AND LIGHT through it all. There are quotes and verses from your funeral and other things reminding me that He is good...even if sometimes I don't like it or get mad at Him or whatever.
I am plugging along. I started wearing your anniversary band a few weeks ago. A constant reminder of you, not like I really need one, but still. I tried wearing your bands and your diamond as well for a while at Christmas but it was too hard. I couldn't do it.
I miss you constantly. All the time, everyday. I wish I could ask you for advice. Sometimes I do, and you must hear me all the way up in Heaven because sometimes I ask you for a sign you're there or if you're still around to visit. Sometimes I don't get them. But on the days I really need it, you talk to me. Like the time on my lunch break I was having a hard time and asked for a sign you heard me talking to you in the car--and I saw that fortune cookie paper in my purse and what it said. I smiled. And Willy's radio being all...twitchy over bumps...I was talking to you then too, and at the crux of it, the worst and saddest part, it suddenly turned on to a song relevant to what I was thinking and feeling about you! I like these little things. They make me happy. I should probably go get some breakfast now, so I'll leave you with this small offering today.
I love you, forever and always.
Love,
Christy
Friday, December 3, 2010
8
Dear Mom,
I'm sorry there has been so much silence from me the last few weeks. Life has been rather tumultuous the last few weeks. At the start of November I got a new job, working full time. You would have been so proud of me for that. I had really been struggling there and I wanted to talk to you to say that and to hear that you believed in me and were proud. I know you are, even if you can't tell me.
My life since then has been a juggling act that I had had problems dealing with. Stuff is too crazy. Always too crazy. People still miss you. I still miss you. I think you're still around sometimes because I've been dreaming of you more in the last two or three days. It is kind of nice. And I'm feeling good about you, but I still wish you were here.
I'm feeling quite sick with a bad cold. I want to call you and say "how to fix this." "how can I make myself feel better?" I want my mom when I'm sick. I wish that you could be here with me because there is so much I want to talk to you about. So much I want advice about. I still miss you too much.
Dad is having a hard time. He says things like "I'm glad that other people are having fun." I worry about him. I worry about everybody. There is so much that I have to do and things. I just can't help but miss you so acutely, so intensely.
I have to stop writing for a bit, Momma. I love you a lot but right now this is too hard. What I'll say for now? I wrote about 15,000 words for NaNoWriMo about you. It's the best stuff I think I've ever written. And that's saying something.
I love you, forever and always.
Love,
Christy
I'm sorry there has been so much silence from me the last few weeks. Life has been rather tumultuous the last few weeks. At the start of November I got a new job, working full time. You would have been so proud of me for that. I had really been struggling there and I wanted to talk to you to say that and to hear that you believed in me and were proud. I know you are, even if you can't tell me.
My life since then has been a juggling act that I had had problems dealing with. Stuff is too crazy. Always too crazy. People still miss you. I still miss you. I think you're still around sometimes because I've been dreaming of you more in the last two or three days. It is kind of nice. And I'm feeling good about you, but I still wish you were here.
I'm feeling quite sick with a bad cold. I want to call you and say "how to fix this." "how can I make myself feel better?" I want my mom when I'm sick. I wish that you could be here with me because there is so much I want to talk to you about. So much I want advice about. I still miss you too much.
Dad is having a hard time. He says things like "I'm glad that other people are having fun." I worry about him. I worry about everybody. There is so much that I have to do and things. I just can't help but miss you so acutely, so intensely.
I have to stop writing for a bit, Momma. I love you a lot but right now this is too hard. What I'll say for now? I wrote about 15,000 words for NaNoWriMo about you. It's the best stuff I think I've ever written. And that's saying something.
I love you, forever and always.
Love,
Christy
Friday, October 22, 2010
7
Dear Mom,
I'm sorry its been so long since I last wrote. Life (and your death) keep throwing curveballs at me. One minute I'm fine, the next unable to move--frozen by grief and sadness. I am well aware (and as Dad and I keep telling myself) that you wouldn't want me to be so static in my life after your death. I keep trying to move on but this has shattered me in ways I can't fathom. That I never knew would. In ways I thought were for other people, not me.
I am utterly incapable, it seems, to stop from crying at every little thing. One of the CDs I listened to while you were sick and before you died was "Church Music." One song in particular off that album kept reminding me that no matter what, I had to "shine my light" through this terrible darkness that was your illness and your Cancer. I don't usually link to things here, but the band just released it as a single. Here's their video for "SMS Shine."
I can't listen to this song without crying, and the video? BREAKS MY HEART EVERY TIME.
I seem to be able to put on a front for people at work, and in my usual day-to-day life. Most of them don't know these things. Don't know that I'm still trying to cope. Tim knows, but his patience is running a bit thin with me sometimes. I just notice things about myself. I'm so much more keenly aware of myself, it is not a happy thing for me. It's seemingly impacting my entire life. This I don't like, and I'm trying to stop myself from being TOO self-aware.
Anyway, Mom, I wish you'd pop in one of my dreams again sometime soon. I miss seeing you, and it'd be good for me to be around you, even in my dreams.
I love you, forever and always.
Love,
Christy
I'm sorry its been so long since I last wrote. Life (and your death) keep throwing curveballs at me. One minute I'm fine, the next unable to move--frozen by grief and sadness. I am well aware (and as Dad and I keep telling myself) that you wouldn't want me to be so static in my life after your death. I keep trying to move on but this has shattered me in ways I can't fathom. That I never knew would. In ways I thought were for other people, not me.
I am utterly incapable, it seems, to stop from crying at every little thing. One of the CDs I listened to while you were sick and before you died was "Church Music." One song in particular off that album kept reminding me that no matter what, I had to "shine my light" through this terrible darkness that was your illness and your Cancer. I don't usually link to things here, but the band just released it as a single. Here's their video for "SMS Shine."
I can't listen to this song without crying, and the video? BREAKS MY HEART EVERY TIME.
I seem to be able to put on a front for people at work, and in my usual day-to-day life. Most of them don't know these things. Don't know that I'm still trying to cope. Tim knows, but his patience is running a bit thin with me sometimes. I just notice things about myself. I'm so much more keenly aware of myself, it is not a happy thing for me. It's seemingly impacting my entire life. This I don't like, and I'm trying to stop myself from being TOO self-aware.
Anyway, Mom, I wish you'd pop in one of my dreams again sometime soon. I miss seeing you, and it'd be good for me to be around you, even in my dreams.
I love you, forever and always.
Love,
Christy
Friday, October 8, 2010
6
Dear Mom,
Now that September's over, I can stop quoting Billie Joel's "Wake Me Up When September Ends." His live version on the Stand Up 2 Cancer show breaks my heart every time. It would break yours too. It made me think of you in more ways than I'd like to admit. Now though, it's October, and there's even more Cancer stuff on TV and in radio and internet ads. While my initial anger at Cancer is starting to wane a little, the pangs of hurt I feel with these ads makes me miss you very acutely.
I had my first dream of you in a long while today. It was a dream I didn't DIDN'T want to wake up from. I'm really sad and sorry I did. I was having fun hanging with you. The dreams are bittersweet--you are both here and not, and I was relieved to dream of you.
Right now I've been feeling like I can't remember your voice. I know it's crazy, but I wish I could still physically call you. That would really make my day, frankly. That'd make my life, if I could talk to you again. I still talk to you in the car sometimes. You'd be super proud of me for driving Willy around. I've been doing really well with it. You'd also be proud of the work I did today. It was really good.
I'm not sure what else to do with myself. There are a few things in the works that I think will be wonderfully great, especially if they work out. I'll tell you more about them when the time comes. I want to say too, Mom, that I'm glad you are able to see all the fall colors from the best seat ever. I'm pretty jealous.
I'll write more later, Mom. ILU.
I love you, forever and always.
Love,
Christy
Now that September's over, I can stop quoting Billie Joel's "Wake Me Up When September Ends." His live version on the Stand Up 2 Cancer show breaks my heart every time. It would break yours too. It made me think of you in more ways than I'd like to admit. Now though, it's October, and there's even more Cancer stuff on TV and in radio and internet ads. While my initial anger at Cancer is starting to wane a little, the pangs of hurt I feel with these ads makes me miss you very acutely.
I had my first dream of you in a long while today. It was a dream I didn't DIDN'T want to wake up from. I'm really sad and sorry I did. I was having fun hanging with you. The dreams are bittersweet--you are both here and not, and I was relieved to dream of you.
Right now I've been feeling like I can't remember your voice. I know it's crazy, but I wish I could still physically call you. That would really make my day, frankly. That'd make my life, if I could talk to you again. I still talk to you in the car sometimes. You'd be super proud of me for driving Willy around. I've been doing really well with it. You'd also be proud of the work I did today. It was really good.
I'm not sure what else to do with myself. There are a few things in the works that I think will be wonderfully great, especially if they work out. I'll tell you more about them when the time comes. I want to say too, Mom, that I'm glad you are able to see all the fall colors from the best seat ever. I'm pretty jealous.
I'll write more later, Mom. ILU.
I love you, forever and always.
Love,
Christy
Sunday, September 26, 2010
5
Dear Mom,
I haven't had a lot of dreams of you recently. I also haven't cried a lot recently, though if I let myself feel it, I will fall to pieces. I can tell I've been bottling things up, holding them in, as if I let them go, I'll let you go. I know it's irrational, but I can't help it.
The video/audio I seem to be constantly replaying is the 36 hours before you died, over and over and over. It's driving me crazy, Mom. I just keep hearing me tell you I love you, and hearing your whispered voice telling me you love me too. I keep hearing your breathing and wishing on everything I can that you'd have lived, that the evil cancer would have stopped or slowed...I swear I cried so hard for you in those hours. Fell to my knees and down on the ground, wrapped in myself so much and kept so quiet as I cried. It was not loud or obnoxious, just tears falling, falling.
I'm sort of glad that Dad wasn't awake to watch you die too, because it would have been too hard for him. One of the hardest things we've ever done, after saying goodbye to David that day, was Dad and me walking back to your room hand in hand and crying. We talked quickly and I suggested to him we tell you how much we love you, and that you didn't have to fight anymore--that you could let go and didn't have to stay here in pain for us. It bothered me because I couldn't tell if you were still cognizant of things or not. I hated to think that your mind was still completely well and we were telling you to die...I think you understood though. By then your kidneys had failed and you probably weren't very aware of things, though you often could listen to us.
I still miss you so much it physically pains me sometimes. I can't listen to certain songs because they make me think of you. Of praying for your death to be quick and painless, of praying and hoping for the cancer to stop, disappear. I wondered if God Himself had heard me, and I wasn't sure. I hated the thought He hadn't heard me.
Death is such a terrible thing. I simply can't seem to get a handle on things that I need to. I keep trying to get things done around the house and I just CAN'T SEEM to get a grip. I keep wishing that I could rewind the world to Early-Mid June, back when life was seemingly perfect. Then I could tell you to just go to the Dr and get that hysterectomy, and not worry about the repercussions of it. I sometimes wish you'd have listened to me, but even by the time we talked about that, it was probably too late. The outcome might have been the same, and the devil himself is making me think it might not have been the same, that you'd still be alive. I tell myself I'm being tricked by his evil. I am still trying to relearn how to trust God after this happened. I am so scared to do it since He didn't save you...
I'm trying to be a good girl, Mom. I'm trying to get better about this. I'm still so depressed, I sometimes feel so very alone. Oh Mom--I wish I could still hug you. I wish I could feel your arms around mine and eat your good cooking, for us to talk and laugh and love together. I still needed you here; why did you get taken away?
I love you, forever and always.
Love,
Christy
I haven't had a lot of dreams of you recently. I also haven't cried a lot recently, though if I let myself feel it, I will fall to pieces. I can tell I've been bottling things up, holding them in, as if I let them go, I'll let you go. I know it's irrational, but I can't help it.
The video/audio I seem to be constantly replaying is the 36 hours before you died, over and over and over. It's driving me crazy, Mom. I just keep hearing me tell you I love you, and hearing your whispered voice telling me you love me too. I keep hearing your breathing and wishing on everything I can that you'd have lived, that the evil cancer would have stopped or slowed...I swear I cried so hard for you in those hours. Fell to my knees and down on the ground, wrapped in myself so much and kept so quiet as I cried. It was not loud or obnoxious, just tears falling, falling.
I'm sort of glad that Dad wasn't awake to watch you die too, because it would have been too hard for him. One of the hardest things we've ever done, after saying goodbye to David that day, was Dad and me walking back to your room hand in hand and crying. We talked quickly and I suggested to him we tell you how much we love you, and that you didn't have to fight anymore--that you could let go and didn't have to stay here in pain for us. It bothered me because I couldn't tell if you were still cognizant of things or not. I hated to think that your mind was still completely well and we were telling you to die...I think you understood though. By then your kidneys had failed and you probably weren't very aware of things, though you often could listen to us.
I still miss you so much it physically pains me sometimes. I can't listen to certain songs because they make me think of you. Of praying for your death to be quick and painless, of praying and hoping for the cancer to stop, disappear. I wondered if God Himself had heard me, and I wasn't sure. I hated the thought He hadn't heard me.
Death is such a terrible thing. I simply can't seem to get a handle on things that I need to. I keep trying to get things done around the house and I just CAN'T SEEM to get a grip. I keep wishing that I could rewind the world to Early-Mid June, back when life was seemingly perfect. Then I could tell you to just go to the Dr and get that hysterectomy, and not worry about the repercussions of it. I sometimes wish you'd have listened to me, but even by the time we talked about that, it was probably too late. The outcome might have been the same, and the devil himself is making me think it might not have been the same, that you'd still be alive. I tell myself I'm being tricked by his evil. I am still trying to relearn how to trust God after this happened. I am so scared to do it since He didn't save you...
I'm trying to be a good girl, Mom. I'm trying to get better about this. I'm still so depressed, I sometimes feel so very alone. Oh Mom--I wish I could still hug you. I wish I could feel your arms around mine and eat your good cooking, for us to talk and laugh and love together. I still needed you here; why did you get taken away?
I love you, forever and always.
Love,
Christy
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