Signs

It's Sunday night. I should be doing homework and preparing for the week ahead. Instead, I am sitting in the middle of my bedroom floor eating only the red starbursts. I'm wearing my dad's beat-up and faded Myrtle Beach sweatshirt and my mom's old yoga pants. I just don't feel like doing anything. These last 6 days have been cruel. I'd argue that the time after death is actually worse than the death itself, because your world is frozen in time and everyone else is continuing like nothing ever happened. I don't understand how people are going to work or writing papers or shopping or dancing the night away. I don't understand how people are functioning...don't they know my mom is gone?! My mother was completely at peace, surrounded by her siblings and spouse, when she accepted God's invitation to come to Heaven. I wouldn't have denied the invite either. In that moment I was filled with mixed emotions - I was so thankful she wasn't hurting anymore and so excited for her to see her mother and be with God. But I was also pissed that cancer had won and scared because in that moment, she was officially gone forever and I wasn't ready for her to leave me. I walked into the room to see my mother lying still in the hospital bed and burst into a hysterical fit of tears and anxiety. Everything I'd kept in for the last seven months was finally surfacing. I was looking at my mom, but she wasn't there - talk about a difficult concept to grasp.

Tonight we began the process of purging. Normally, I love cleaning - there's something therapeutic about getting rid of things you don't need or want anymore. In this case, it's just painful. We are only doing little pieces at a time and we stop when it becomes too much. I started to go through my mom's closet. Some articles of clothing I was so happy to throw away - my mom's definitely scolding me from Heaven because she LOVED some of the things I tossed...but I've been wanting to do that for a long time (sorry mom). There were many things I pulled out of the closet and hugged because I remembered her wearing and loving me in it. All of her clothes carried her scent - a scent I didn't realize she had until tonight. I didn't realize how much I would miss that smell. I went to pull out a garment and noticed that the two hangers were tangled on the closet bar. I put my hand on the back wall to steady myself while I unhooked the hangers and saw something attached to the wall. I moved the clothes aside and began to cry. There was a poem I had written from December 2006, for my mom. I'm not sure why she taped it to the back wall of her closet, but this is what it said,

" You're so special to me and you're always there,
Regardless of whether or not you seem to care.
Through all the junk I went through last year,
You were the one to lend an ear.
You gave me advice when I was feeling low,
And gave me the strength to get up and go.
We have many more tantrums and fights to get through,
But in the end I know I'll always have you.
I tell you everything and have trust in you,
Because that's just what best friends do.
I couldn't make it without you this I know,
In other words I'm simply never letting you go.
I love you very much I must say,
In just about each and every way."

I read this poem over and over again. I don't remember writing it or giving it to her but I'm so glad I did. She was my best friend and always knew what to do or say. The part that upsets me most is, "I couldn't make it without you this I know, in other words I'm simply never letting you go". I'm gonna have to make it without her and I did let her go. Moments before my mom passed away I was praying to God. I was praying for her to be at peace and to stop fighting. She had fought long and hard and I knew I had to let her go. In this state there was no more she could do. Ironically enough I was wearing a necklace my mom had given me years ago. It is in the shape of a circle - beginning and ending in the same place. I was rubbing it and praying. I looked down at the necklace and realized there were words. I'm sure when my mom originally gave it to me I knew it had words, but I had forgotten what they said - "All the strength you need is right there inside you". In that moment I knew we would be okay. I knew my mom had given us the tools we needed to continue this live without her. A few minutes later my dad came into the waiting room and announced that she was gone.

While I was cleaning the closet tonight I found an old package of pictures behind the door. I opened the Costco envelope and pulled out a stack of about 50 pictures. I immediately got chill-bumps when I noticed that the picture on top was of the big beautiful gate at the Botanical Gardens. Normally I wouldn't think anything of it, but Pastor Goeres preached about that gate and how it could very well resemble the gates of Heaven. What are the odds that would be the very first picture in this stack?! I started to think that maybe my mom was trying to communicate with me. I pushed the photos aside and moved on to dealing with her mountain of shoes when I heard a gasp from the other room. I called to Caroline to see if she was okay. Caroline came into the room with a stunned deer-in-the-headlights kind of expression. It looked like she had just seen a giant flying monkey in her room. She held up a pair of cowboy boot earrings and said "look what I found in mom's jewelry". We both were wide eyed and speechless. Caroline has been asking for these specific cowboy boot earrings for almost a year. They are from Acredale Sadelry and are usually never in stock. My mom must have bought them a long time ago and forgotten about them...but that wasn't like her. She only started to slip the last two weeks before her diagnosis. In that moment, I definitely think my mom was communicating with us.

I pretend to be strong most of the time, but I hurt so badly. I just have so much love for my mom and I'm really not sure I can handle all the curve balls ahead without her. I often wish I was kinder and showed more love...but she showed me today in the old poem I'd written that she knew. She knew how much I loved her. And she showed me she cared - she saved that poem for years and even though the construction paper backing was faded and yucky, I'm sure that piece of paper would have remained there forever. I now have it in my room on my desk, to look at whenever I miss her. She showed me the picture of the gate to prove that she was with God. I have no doubt she's in Heaven, but sometimes it's nice to be reassured and she knows I desperately need that. The words written on the inside of my necklace could not have come at a better time...moments before he passing. That was my mom speaking to me and saying "you're stronger than you think, and all that strength is inside you". She raised me to be strong and independent and she surrendered to the disease moments after I realized I could do this without her. I don't know how to explain the earrings. It was almost like she left us gifts because she knew we'd struggle terribly with her passing. Yet again, she's still being thoughtful ever after she's gone.

Saturday morning we celebrated my mom's life. It was an amazing tribute to the best woman I've ever known and will ever know. The church was packed with so many wonderful and familiar faces. It was the most up-beat funeral I've ever been to and I am so thankful that everything worked out perfectly. Pastor Goeres preached about understanding and the lack thereof. I don't know why this happened to my family or my mom - I hate that it did. But sometimes we don't need to understand. I have a huge problem with this notion. Proverbs 3:5-6 says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths." At my weakest moments I find passages that touch my heart and comfort my soul. I will never understand why my mother left this world and as hard as it is to admit...I don't really need to know why. I need to trust in the Lord because He has provided food, family, friends and comfort over the last seven months. He has provided unconditional love and guidance even when I refused to listen or confide in him. I'd like to think that He allowed my mom to communicate with us the day she passed, during her funeral and tonight as we purged. Something about that passage restores my soul and encourages me to think happy thoughts. There is nothing wrong with grieving, but I deserve to smile and be alive. My mom didn't give me life so that I could mope around and feel sorry for myself - she gave me life so that I could live it to the fullest. I will be very busy for the rest of my life living out her legacy and creating my own.