You might think that the fact that I lost mom more than four years ago would make it somehow easier to deal with. I feel like her absence is more and more obvious and painful. I don't think about her on a daily basis. Sometimes I feel bad about it, but then again, I didn't think of her like that when she was alive either. I was an independent teenager and college student. I knew how to study and knew the direction that I wanted my life to take.
Now as a mom and a "grown up", I need her so much. I need someone who loves me and understands me. Someone who might even help me to understand myself. She raised me and she would know how to do that. Because of the way I love my kids, I know how she loves me. And I realize what I am missing each day.
Last week, I cried twice over her. I read a book about breast cancer and while she didn't have breast cancer, I felt it hit close to my heart. I thought of my mom, alone, in the hospital. Treatment after treatment. So strong, yet probably so afraid. So full of faith and willingness to fight, but also probably so tired. Losing her hair, gaining weight because of steroids, vomiting, losing her muscles.
I wasn't there when she died. Anna, Mio and dad were. I know it wasn't easy and maybe they wish that they didn't have to witness her last breath, but I wish I had been there. I was supposed to be going home that summer and take care of her. I was supposed help her in and out of bed. I was supposed to joke around with her when she was in the mood for it and cry with her when she needed to cry. I was suppose to be able to do something for her after everything she had done for us.
I was so far away when everything with the cancer happened. I was removed from it. Not because I didn't care, but because I didn't live the daily realities of her life. I had just started nursing school when she got her bone marrow transplant and I thought that somehow I understood so much about it all because I was going to be a nurse. Now I realize that I didn't know much at all.
We named Eerika after mom. I think she has some of mom's feistiness and much of her beauty.I scooped Eerika in my arms as I cried and I prayed that I would get to see her become a young woman, a mom and whatever else would become of her. I prayed it for my own sake, I want to share everything with her, but I also prayed it for her. I realize that losing a mom, no matter what your age, leaves a huge hole in you.
For months after she died, I slept in her old night gown. It was a cheap one that she had bought after her transplant. My mom didnt buy cheap things but she had bought it as a "temporary" thing while she was recovering from the transplant. I read old emails and cards from her. Those times, I can hear her voice in my head.
Her cancer pains came back the Thursday before Easter that year. She was in so much pain that she had to get multiple pain medications to be comfortable. Somehow I find it very fitting that it happened the "same night" as our Savior suffered in Gethsemane for our sins.
I am not bitter because her death. But I miss her. Those words don't even do justice.
