And Just Like That, It`s Autumn

It doesn't seem to matter how much time passes, there are still times when I miss my mother so much that I want to crawl under the covers and sob myself to sleep. On those days, I feel a deep, almost tortured longing for one more phone call, another shared cup of sweet, hot tea at her kitchen table.

Today is not one of those days. 

The sadness that has visited me off and on throughout this day, is a new version of my usual grief. Today, I just really feel like sending my mother an email with an update on my life. My Mom died in April, 2000. Before 9/11. Before my sister came into recovery. Before I finished my PhD. Before, before, before. So very much has happened. What an email it would be.

Dear Mom,

I'm sorry I haven't dropped a line in over eleven years. Been busy. So much has changed since you left, I hardly know where to start, really. Here's a list of some rather trivial nonsense that you might be interested in:

• Just after you died, George Clooney and Juliana Margulies got back together on ER.
• Something tragic happened on September 11, 2001 but I'm guessing you know about that already. 
• Larry King retired and evenings on CNN have never been the same (I can't remember if Anderson Cooper was around when you were last here, he's really great but I still miss Larry).
• Elizabeth Taylor died earlier this year, I know how you loved her.
• Televisions are flat now.
• I see Baby Sister every week for a visit, even though she lives over a thousand miles away. (It's this thing called Skype).
• Dad figured out how to do the telephone banking, he's quite a pro at it.
• Dad and Auntie Claudette got together and were really happy for five years, then she died too. (Don't be mad at her when you see her, they were both very lonely and it was a really good thing).
• Your youngest son fell in love online (on the computer), got married and moved to Mississippi. I know that this must totally freak you out.
• Your oldest son bought a Harley when he turned 50. Also quite freaky.
• In 2005, I ended up in emergency surgery after coming very close to dying. Don't worry - it was just cancer and I am fine now.
• Your grandkids are all fine (you have two new ones, very cute), and so are your greatgrandkids (you have two more of them too, also adorable).
• A hell of a lot of people have trouble with wheat now. I am not sure if you have ever even heard of gluten, but it's not good.
• You can read books on this little computer-screen type thing called a Kindle now. Yes, I am serious.
• If I wanted to, I could send you this email (complete with pictures, if I wanted) from my phone. 
• There's this thing called Facebook now. It`s hard to explain. Let's put it this way - if Facebook had been around when I was a teenager, you probably would have figured out I was up to no good a lot sooner than you did.

Well Mom, I could go on and on. So much is new, so much has changed.

It's fall here. The seasons don't change quite as radically now that I have moved to the West Coast. I don't even know or remember if you liked autumn. I know that you loved spring and summer. I can only guess that like me, you didn't mind autumn in the years that you knew you were going on a holiday down south. I remember that you used to curse the damned leaves that fell on the acreage, there was no end to them, you used to say.

I know you loved Christmas, but hated snow. It doesn't really snow where I live. If you were still alive, I bet you would move here, because I remember you cursed the snow as much when it fell as you did the leaves. One day when Dad was visiting after we first moved here I asked him, "Do you think Mom would like it here?" And he told me that you would for sure, that you loved the ocean. I hadn't know that about you. It comforts me, because I have fallen in love with my ocean.

Dad`s coming to see us in a few weeks. He`s doing okay, Mom. He`s an older, maybe even gentler version of the George you left behind. He sure keeps busy running around the continent visiting between the four of us. When he gets here, I'll ask him if you liked the fall. We still talk about you often, he and I. Not in the way we did in the beginning, just after you left. Those talks were heartbreaking and hard. Now we keep it light, or try to.

I have learned a great deal about grief, Mom. It changes like the seasons, but it comes around, just as surely. Just as surely as how much I miss you. As how much I love you.

Forever yours,
Dawn

So Much To Say

So little time.

I have a lot of blogging to do - I am literally overflowing with thoughts and ideas. So my plan is to write daily again for at least the next several days, starting tonight.

In the meantime, I am desperate to finally post this picture of my mother on this, my blog. My blog has felt incomplete because I've never been able to post this picture here. I've written and will continue to blog about my Mom every so often but it wasn't until today that I learned (*embarrassing*) how to scan a photo using my new printer. Well, not really new - I've had the printer for eight months but only set it up about six weeks ago. Finally, after weeks of failed attempts, I Facebooked my peeps tonight to ask how to scan photos so that they don't show up as Adobe documents. I could use some computer lessons, seriously. Thank you to my people - L and G.

So here is one of my favourite pics of my Mom. She passed away just over eleven years ago, when she was only 68. She was in her 50s in this picture, but this is how I think of her when I picture her in my head and heart. This picture sits on my bedside table. I talk to her/it - often.

I like that the photo shows my Mom's hands. I have for quite some time lamented over the fact that I did not inherit those slender, graceful hands. Mine are kind of stubby. I have read about or heard from so many women who say they have their mother's hands, and I am happy for them, but it also makes me just a little envious. As often as people who knew her tell me that I look like my Mom, I haven't ever been able to see it. Still, I've thought in the past that I would recognize her hands if they were on the end of my wrists.

Something pretty miraculous happened several weeks ago. I was sitting in my Thursday night recovery meeting, just listening, and when I glanced down at my right hand I saw for the first time that - I have her thumb. I hadn't recognized it before but I've grown my nails recently, and well - there it was. When I realized it was there, I shed myself a few tears. Happy tears, of course. I love my new thumb.

Thanks, Mom. And - welcome to my blog.

Happy Birthday

Mom, you would have turned 79 today. As has been the case for each of your birthdays this past nearly eleven years, it's been a bit of a rough week for me. I'm trying for a lighter touch today because, well to be quite frank, I've been on kind of a downer lately and it's getting pretty old. If you were here, you would be getting impatient with me and saying things like "enough already, snap out of it, move on." I'd be tempted to listen to you, but then my therapist would be irritated with me.

So for today at least, on your birthday, I'd like to catch you up on a few things I would tell you if you were here, things that I think would make you smile. If you were here, I think that you would laugh as I fill you in on things and sometimes you would say, "You silly arse." I loved it when you called us kids silly arses. Do you know that you almost always said it with a smile on your face?

Yes, I think that you would be quite surprised to learn what's been going on with me since you left. For example:

• I'm still not much of a cook, and I still have no interest in baking;
• I still haven't had a drink and it's been nearly 24 years (I helped myself to some of your medication a week after you died though, so I changed my "clean" date to May 11, 2000);
• I finished my PhD, but don't really give a shit about it because I think the main reason I did it was to make you proud of me, and I realized half-way into it that you were probably proud of me anyway. I finished it anyway, have a huge student loan.
• An interesting piece of that is that I defended my PhD thesis in the hospital one week after they removed my cancerous colon, which is kind of a hoot of a story to tell people;
• I have a garden now and it's quite lovely, but I still kill houseplants on a regular basis;
• I wear long johns all winter long, fancy ones with lace at the bottom (under my jeans and dress pants);
• Soul Mate started drinking black tea in your memory after you died, and now he is addicted to it. We don't just drink your favourite (Red Rose) anymore, in fact we buy loose tea now, at a cost of about $25 a pound. It would freak you out to know that we go through a pound about every two weeks.
• First Born has inherited yours and my voracious appetite for reading and collecting books. She still loves ribs for dinner more than anything, especially her Poppa's;
• Yoga Kid still reads mostly non-fiction. She is now a vegetarian, so she's not into anything we ever cook around here anymore, but eats a lot of quinoa (I know, you have no idea what that is, do you?);
• I now hate the colour forest green because I overdosed on it so so much in the 90s;
• I drive a Nissan Cube now, you would laugh at it and tell me it's funny looking (because it is) but I love it;
• My favourite thing in the world to do is sit by the ocean and think and drink tea or coffee, and I often think of you and how much I miss you, while I am there;
• We are no longer landlocked, but moved to an island so the ocean is only about a 7.5 minute drive away in my funny looking Cube;
• I still can't carry a tune or draw, but I am learning to knit a wicked slipper;
• I still miss you so much sometimes that I cry until my face is red and blotchy and snot drops drip onto my chest or into my ears if I am lying down;
• I eat crumpets with jam (in memory of you) even when I am trying not to eat wheat or flour;
• I sometimes amaze myself by not crying when I am thinking or writing about missing you. Like right now.

I'm going to keep trying to celebrate a "happy" birthday for you today, Mom. I know you would like that, for both of us. Before I go, I want to share a picture that your sweet nephew created and sent to Baby Sister and I. To be honest, it kind of creeped me out a bit at first, but I love the idea of it. That you are there, watching over me and all of your loved ones, from somewhere just beyond the ocean's horizon, is a comfort.

I love you, Mom.