One Year

On July 17th it was the 1-year anniversary of my  mom's passing.  For a few months after she passed, I wondered what we would do that day.  Would my brothers and I come together and find a way to honor and remember her?  Would we all be a little closer, having grown over that year? 

The answer is that I spent that day by waking up at 4am to catch a 6:30am flight from LA to Cleveland with my 2 small children.  To be honest, I can't even remember now exactly what we did.  (We went to the store, cooked dinner and hung out until we all crashed - I just remembered.)

Yes, I thought of her off and on through out the day and I missed her but it was mostly nothing new.

When she passed, we had her cremated and the remains were simply placed in a cardboard box that went home with my dad.  As far as I know, he put that box on the mantle and it is still there.  I don't know, I haven't been in the house for quite some time.  When all this was happening, I requested that eventually we do something, put something somewhere so that we would all have a place to go to visit her, talk to her, remember her.  That hasn't happened.

I miss her every single day.  I think about her every day.  I have dreams about her and I wish they were good dreams where she reassured me that everything was ok, but mostly she's sad in them.

I stopped going to therapy at the beginning of this year.  It wasn't because I thought I was done but because I was pregnant, starting a new job, etc.  Busy.  If I were still there I'm sure that she would have recommended that I do something to honor her like go to her favorite place for lunch or write her a letter or something. 

As for all of us being closer, we're not.  Not that we're further apart, just that things don't really seem to have changed.  With one exception, my dad.  There has been a lot of turmoil over the past year in our relationship and we are distant.

If there isn't a place to go and visit her, perhaps I'll have to create one.