Archives for July 2014

In November of this year it will have been 3 years since my Mom died.  Some days it feels like yesterday  which seems completely bizarre…32 months seems like relatively enough time to heal, but then someone who impacts your every day dies and time loses all reasoning…and then some days it feels like she’s a stranger or a dream which makes me deeply sad in a different  way.

I’ve hit my “I’m completely over this house hunting thing” point and have said to heck with waiting on everything and have started doing all the dreams and ideas in my head.  This definitely deserves an entirely separate post of it’s own. Over the weekend I got a wild hair and painted our dining room.  It’s just kind of what I do.  As I was putting things back in their places I stopped and just stared at a picture of me and Mom and I sat there thinking how she’s starting to feel distant to me in some ways…like she wasn’t real.  It made me incredibly sad and makes me get all teary just thinking about it.  I’m afraid time has some hateful tricks I’m just starting to learn about.

We had a wildly wonderful 4th of July.  My Mom’s family had their ginormous yearly Hall family reunion.  Mom was the youngest of 12…yes 12!  You can imagine our reunions.  Crazy loud kind people everywhere and enough crazy good food to feed an army…which we’re really like an army by number standards.  These are some of the people who knew Mom best.  And I like them.  They are loving and kind and real.  They are family.  I cannot even tell you how good I felt being around each and every one of these people.  I laughed.  I cried.  I laughed some more.  And then ate cookies.  It was the best.  I didn’t want to leave.  When it was time to leave I was immediately taken back to the night after Mom’s funeral.

I remember how bussling the days after Mom’s death had been.  There was so much for my brother Chris and I to do.  Family and friends were pouring in from all over and the love was delightfully thick.  The appreciation and gratitude for Mom’s life was loud and wonderful just like her.  I was so busy…so many many things to do.  So many many people to talk to.  I remember each person who came to see me after she died I said the same thing…”It’s okay.  It’s okay.”  I felt as if I had just consoled 500 people…I didn’t want anyone to feel bad…I didn’t want anyone to feel bad for me.  In the busyness of those first days I had yet to feel the loneliness of death.  I had yet to feel really alone just yet.

As we gathered all the kids belongings and started to wrap up our wonderful 4th of July at the Hall reunion I flashed straight back to that night after Mom’s funeral when everyone started to exit to go home.  When this busy death reunion time came to an end.  The moment when everyone had to go back to their own lives, like they should have, and I was left with an entirely new one.  I remember sitting in Mom’s basement on her daybed surrounded by these same sweet people and tons of plants and flowers and realizing for the first time these people who we’re keeping me afloat were all about to leave and I was going to have to learn how to swim again.  I cried so hard when they left.  I genuinely felt shocked they were leaving…it hadn’t dawned on me just yet.  And I did not want to leave this family reunion just the same.

I had been genuinely loved on and spent quality time with these amazing people, who I just don’t see enough.  I had enjoyed them so much and had forgotten about the reality of leaving.  When we got home I was just down.  The 4th of July is suppose to be all parties and fireworks and red, white and blue themed desserts, not tears and pity parties.  The emotion and the ups and downs of death is so crazy sometimes.  The way it ebbs and flows.  I realized, “It’s okay.  It’s okay.”  It’s okay to feel the ups and downs of losing her.  It’s okay when it’s suffocating and when it’s so far removed she doesn’t seem real.  It’s okay when you feel straight up depressed about having to leave a family reunion.  Don’t most people hate family reunions…I’m super lucky.  And what makes it all okay is a God who reminds you of His goodness even when you just feel sad.  When He simply reminds you He’s also there in the messy parts…and He’s not just there, but He wants to be.

Our 4th ended up taking another turn for the better after my down in the dumps time.  We ate a snacky dinner, shot our own fireworks in our backyard with sparklers and poppers.  I watched Josh Kelley light sparkler after sparkler after sparkler for these 4 small humans and I was overwhelmed with gratitude once again.  God’s goodness everywhere and there I sat, right in the thick of it.

So thankful for family.  So thankful for God’s goodness and mercy and love.

Happy Monday.