Missed Connection With My Mom

I miss you so so much, Mom. 9-years next week since you’ve been gone. Some years are harder than others; for some reason this is one of those really hard, hard years. It was your wish not to be buried and to be scattered at Niagara Falls. Somewhere you always wanted to go to but never quite made it there. In life, that is. I fought tooth and nail with Tommy to get you there and I won that battle. The 1st anniversary of your passing I took you there and it hurt me so much to do so, but I fulfilled your wish (and broke the law) and scattered you where you always wanted to be.

But that left me aching … because I now no longer have a place to go and visit you when I need to talk to you, or in a weird way, see you. I can’t go back to Niagara year-after-year. I imagine going back there would be twice as hard any way. At least this year it would be.

I just … miss you so fucking much. Especially right now when things are so fucked up at home. I know you wouldn’t approve of what I am doing.  I know that, but I think you’d see how good this has been for me and I hope you’d then see why I am doing it.

But you’re gone … and I can’t bring you back. If I could give my own life to bring you back for just one more day? I would do so willingly. Just so I could see you one more time. I hate that the last image I have of you is laying there dead and cold. I wish I never demanded to see you. I just wish I didn’t. That image continues to haunt me – sometimes when I close my eyes right before I go to sleep at night?  There that horrible image is, right behind my closed eyelids and nothing I focus on removes it or has successfully removed it yet.

I’m so so sorry I wasn’t there for you. I am so so sorry I didn’t answer the phone that night. I, well, I was selfish and I was protecting myself because it was so hard for me to hear you crying all the time. It tore my heart to shreds and that one night? I just couldn’t deal so I hid from the phone. I didn’t know it was going to be my last chance ever to talk to you. Had I known? I hope you knew, I would have answered your call and I never, never would have let you go that night. In my twisted head I think if I had done so? You’d still be here.  In my heart of hearts I realize, underneath the pain and guilt, that nothing I could have done would have really saved you, Mom.  I lived my whole life trying to save you and I never was successful so I don’t know why my twisted head makes me think that night would have been any different.  But at least I would have been the last person who talked to you.  I could have held that memory close in my heart instead of the horrible memory of me not answering you … and you, you dying alone.  Probably feeling as if I stopped caring for you.

I talked to Tommy.  I know you’d want me to forgive him.  I have.  But he has not reached back again and I don’t think he will.  He never has before.  But it’s okay, or it will be.  I’ve done all I can do and I cannot make people into what they are not.  I also know now I cannot change people and make them care back for me in the same way I care for them.  You’d be amazed at how much Kayla looks like me, but oh my goodness, since the day she was born ALL her expressions are yours.  I don’t get to see Thomas or Kayla, but it gives me a lot of satisfaction knowing Kayla is going to grow up being a lot like you.  Maybe someday I will get to meet her and see it for myself.  Or, as it probably will be?  I won’t.  But again, I’ve done what I needed to do for myself and I’ve offered forgiveness, family love, support and friendship to Tommy.  If I am not wanted there?  I am not wanted and I will have to learn to accept that in order to maintain my own emotional sanity.

I forgot to call the Item earlier this month and place your Memoriam.  I have a feeling you would have never liked me doing those any way.  But it was … I don’t know really, maybe a catharsis for me. 

Maybe it was also a slam aimed towards against Tommy because I know he reads the Item every day.  Maybe I wanted/want him to hurt as much as I hurt over the loss of you. 

Maybe I think I secretly wanted him to reach out to me when he saw them so we could come together, just once a year even, and comfort each other.  But that’s never happened so I know it wouldn’t have happened this year either. 

Tomorrow, as has been my own way, I’ll continue to do what I do to honor you privately. For each year you’ve been gone I go and float your favorite roses at your local favorite beaches. Tomorrow I will be carrying 9 pink roses, Mom. (I remember, you always hated red roses, said they were so overplayed. Funny how I now feel the same way.)  I think I will head to a more private place this time so as to avoid the people looking at me strangely and watching me cry.  Meh, you know I never liked anyone to see me cry.  Not even you…maybe even especially not you. 

I will float one at a time while I talk to you inside my head and cry rivers. Why do I do this? I figure, all bodies of water eventually meet. Maybe in a week or so, your roses will make there way to you.

At least…I have that.  Maybe, maybe if you hear me Mom?  You can send that star back that I used to see shining so brightly up in the sky, directly in front of me.  I don’t see it anymore … I miss seeing it too.

Love,
"Tish"