Today is two years (written on Feb. 14).

Today was not as bad as last year.  It wasn't pretty and it was awful, but it was not the same pit of despair as last year.  I thought I was reasonably okay until I started trying to fix something for breakfast and got mad and started slamming cabinet doors and cursing and yelling at no one.  Then the anger gave way to the sadness.  I didn't cry all day long like last year.  It was more off and on this time.  I can't so much as sniffle without one of my dogs getting in my face and licking me until I'm laughing, so there were a lot of doggie kisses going on today because there was a lot of crying.  My animals stayed as close as possible to me all day long.  They are so good at sensing when I'm sad and need them the most.  I didn't go to work today cause I knew I'd be good for nothing anyway and felt I needed this time to feel.  I used to sing a lot and decided to take some time today to sing some songs to my mom.  It took me six times on each song to get through them without breaking down completely.  I was glad to have had the chance today to allow myself to feel without any distractions.  Life keeps me busy enough most of the time where the pain is running in the background but doesn't always have time to surface.  Sometimes I think I need days where I can purposefully allow it to surface, face it, deal with it, and then I'm okay again.  Several people remembered what today is and it helps me a lot knowing people have not forgotten her.  My best friend did the eulogy and asked everyone to think of my mom every time they saw a penny.  My mom had a thing about finding money on the ground and could spot a penny a mile away.  People always tell me that they really do think of her when they find one.  My dad, my aunt, and I constantly find them in very odd and unusual places, especially when we're feeling down.  My boyfriend had roses delivered to the house today.  He is never sure of what to do on this day anymore because he wants to be sensitive to how I'm feeling and said he wasn't sure whether or not to send them but decided to...I told him anytime he feels an urge to send me flowers, he should just go with it!  He's been really understanding and sweet today, as always.

I want to write about my mom, about the kind of person she was.  Some of it will be a repeat of things I've said before, but I don't care.  She was beautiful...really beautiful...but she had no idea.  She always had very low self-esteem and tried for a long time to find it through being loved by a man.  She just had no concept of how wonderful a person she was through and through.  I wasn't planned.  My parents weren't married when she got pregnant.  She was 35 and didn't know a thing about babies and she was scared to death!  On top of it all, I was born two months too early and had to be on a heart monitor a long time, and she was always afraid something would happen to me.  But over time her nervousness simply gave way to pure love.  She learned everything as she went, and she decided that if you love a child enough, they will always end up forgiving you any mistakes you ever made with them.  She always told me that.  She never did find what she was looking for in any man, I guess because she had not found it in herself first.  Her first husband burned her car up for the insurance money without telling her.  Her second husband cheated on her with his sons' little league coach.  She met my dad at the skating rink.  They were happy for several years, and I don't think they got married only because of me.  I think it was only later when they became unhappy.  But no matter how much stress she was under or how much work she had to do, she always made time for me.  She always took off work on my birthday and to be there at the end of the lane on every field day in elementary school.  There's a Faith Hill song called "You Can't Lose Me" that was always really special to us because it talks about a mom doing that.  She was open with me about her life and didn't try to hide anything she ever did from me...and I could always tell her anything in return.  She held my head whenever I was sick and throwing up.  Any time I was sick, she stayed up late with me if I couldn't sleep and we watched funny shows.  One time the schoolbus had come and I was running late to catch it and fell on our sidewalk in front of the house.  I was in middle school, and you know what a horrible time in life that is anyhow, and I was mortified that the other kids might have seen me.  The busdriver must have seen me because she stopped and tried to wait for me.  My mom ran outside and crouched down behind the bushes with me until the bus left.  Maybe in some circumstancesit would have been best for her to tell me to buck up and get on the bus cause falling wasn't the worst thing in the world.  But I will never forget the fact that she hid WITH me.  I knew I had an ally for life.  Even when I was embarrassed or ashamed, I could have my mama right there with me no matter what anyone else thought of me because she was my biggest fan.  She never put pressure on me to succeed - she just constantly praised anything I ever did and made me feel like I could do anything.  We liked to do word puzzles together.  Sometimes, even as an adult, I would make them up for her, and she would be so excited about doing them.  She loved CSI, and she had the computer game, and we had so much fun trying to solve the mysteries.  I think of those two things a lot...the fact that no one else will ever really care again to do my puzzles or play that game with me.  She worked out of our home since I was 12.  A few months before she died, it was no longer enough to make ends meet, and she got a job at Publix as a bagger.  She LOVED that job.  One of her favorite things was people watching, and she got to do a lot of that there.  She never looked at it as "just" a bagging job.  She looked at it as getting out of the house, talking to funny people, and doing the best job she possibly could.  You aren't supposed to tip people at Publix, but the customers would always try anyway...she would tell them she could get in trouble if she took it, so they would drop the money and walk off - that way they weren't handing it to her and she couldn't get in trouble!  Even though she didn't know her own value, it was her mission to make everyone around her feel as good about themselves as possible, even people she only saw at the grocery store for a few minutes.  She had a boss she was intimidated by for a long time.  Then she decided one day she was tired of being scared of him and was going to wear him down with her kindness.  And she did.  He actually came to her funeral and shed tears.  She never forgot anyone's birthday.  She was big on writing thank you notes.  She was big on notes in general and was always leaving them in surprise places, like my lunchbox or wherever, just to say she loved me and I was special.  She gave me a book of poems from moms to their kids once, and she wrote notes all the way through it and underlined everything she wanted to make sure I read.  I kept it on my bookshelf and one day after she'd been gone a few months, I saw a piece of paper sticking out of it that wasn't before.  I pulled out the book and the note was one she had written back then, but the way it was worded sounded like she'd written it from the other side.  I knew she pulled it out because she knew I needed that.  She wrote a song for me when I was a baby and sang it to me all my life.  I still remember every word, and it is beautiful.  I used to love doing her makeup (big surprise there).  One time she needed a haircut and didn't have money and I volunteered to do it myself...it was a complete disaster and she told me she loved it.  Then when she got cancer and her hair was really falling out, she asked me to cut it all off for her, and I did...and she embraced her baldness with all the grace of a queen.  She was always such a cut-up and known for her dry sense of humor, which she kept right up til the very end.  Her 60th birthday was only a couple weeks before she died, and she came over to my house and we spent the day in bed reading silly tabloid magazines, napping, and talking.  She was too weak to do anything else.  She told me that was the very best day of her whole life.  Those five days she was in the hospice, I only left her side to use the bathroom because I was afraid it would happen while I was gone.  I slept in a bed they pulled in for me that was right next to her.  I was watching her face as she took her last breath and holding her hand.  She always said I was her greatest accomplishment.  It is because of her that I like who I am today.  I decided after she died that I had spent too much time berating myself and despising things about myself and I didn't want to die someday never having known what I was worth.  So I make myself like myself no matter what, even when it's hard.  If she thought I was so special, then darnit, I must be.  More than anything, she taught me what love is and how to love.

I am heartbroken today.  But...Mom...happy Love Day to the person who first taught me love and who gave it unconditionally and unselfishly.  I overflow with it because of you.  You are everything good and pure and lovely.  I can't believe you've been gone two years.  Sometimes it feels like it was yesterday that you left, and sometimes it feels like it's been an eternity already without you. 

Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who tried to call me and email me today.  I am overwhelmed (in a good way) by the number of friends who have remembered what today is and who took the time to send me a note to let me know they didn't forget and to say they were thinking about me.  You all don't know just how much your notes meant to me today when I was so sad...reading them and feeling your encouragement gave me so much hope and comfort.  I am blessed to have all of you in my life.  Some of you I don't even know that well, and some of you I only know because we have been united by a common loss, but I am thankful for each and every one of you.  You are part of why I still have hope and why I know I must keep going.  You never know just how much a little note can mean to somebody.

This is one of the songs I sang to my mom today.  I love it because it's not only about a mom and daughter but also about..........pennies.

"Twenty-Six Cents" by The Wilkinsons

 

She sat all alone on a bus out of Beaumont
The courage of just 18 years
A penny and quarter taped to a letter
And Momma's goodbye in her ears

She watched as her high school
Faded behind her
And the house with the white picket fence
Then she read the note
That her Momma had wrote
Wrapped up with 26 cents

Chorus:
When you get lonely, call me, any time at all
I'll be there with you, always, anywhere at all
There's nothing I got that I wouldn't give
And money is never enough
Here's a penny for your thoughts
A quarter for the call
And all of your Momma's love

A penny and quarter
Buys a whole lot of nothing
Taped to an old wrinkled note
And when she didn't have much
She had all Momma's love
Inside that old envelope

Oh, it's been years since Momma's been gone
But when she holds the coins she feels her love
Just as strong