My mom's 7th anniversary of her death is coming in less than two months. That means in one more year, it'll have been 8 years since she died. I was sixteen when she was found dead. In one year, I'll have spent half as much time without her, as I did with her. Which means in nine short years, I'll have spent more time on this earth without my mom, than I did with her.
I know nine years probably seems far away. But for me, it's not. I don't want that day to come. That day where a majority of my life will have been spent with no mom there to guide me, no mother-daughter talks, no laughing at her stupid, silly, sometimes perverted (okay, usually perverted) humor. I'll have been a motherless daughter for far too long.
I am terrified that one day the memories I have of her will slip away, entirely. And she'll just become this blank image of a woman I once knew as my mother. I'll be able to see her silhouette but nothing more than that. I'm scared that one day, it'll stop hurting completely. I'll be able to fully 100% live with the fact that I am a motherless daughter. And I pray and pray that day never comes. The day it stops hurting, is the day I've stopped missing her. The day the grief is no longer there. And I'm afraid that if I stop grieving her, it'll mean I don't miss having her in my life. And I worry that day will come because one day, I will have outlived my mother. One day, I will have more memories on this earth without her, than I do with her.
I don't ever want to stop missing her or loving her or stop crying over her. I sit here trying to remember specific memories with her and I just always feel like I come up short. Like there aren't enough memories there. There wasn't enough time there. I didn't pay attention enough, observe her enough, almost like I didn't care enough.
And now I lay her without her, unable to do anything to change that. I can't make more memories. I can't ask her questions. I can't get to know her. My biggest fear is forgetting her. Right now, it feels like all my memories of her are on DVDs and I should be able to play them over and over and over. But I can't. They're all scratched and I can only get little clips here and there that show me who she was to me, what she meant to me, what kind of person she was, what we did when we spent our time together. But it doesn't paint a whole picture. There's so much that feels like it's missing. Painted in black. Scratched out. And I can never recover any of it. It's all lost, somewhere. And I can never add to it. It's an unfinished canvas of a mother-daughter relationship, and forever, it'll remain incomplete.
I've tried to learn this. I try to observe more, pay more attention, so that one day, when other people I care for die, I'll have these specific concrete memories I can draw from.
Like my dad.. I go to his house every week for dinner. He might think it's because I don't want to cook for myself. Or because I don't want to spend money on groceries. But it's because it's a memory I want to have of him. To think back to all the weekly dinners we had. I'll be able to say that he made dinner for us, always letting me get my plate first. We'd sit down and watch the 5:30 news on Channel 13. After would be NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, followed by the 6:00 news then Wheel of Fortunate after. Sometimes we'd talk about the news topics, other times we wouldn't say much. But I always finished my dinner before he got even half of his ate. We always tried to guess the Wheel of Fortune puzzles, he is usually better than me. I always love when he bitched about work. He is such a calm, laid back person that I love when he actual states an opinion about something or talks about changing things to make himself happy. He always seemed to be so focused on my happiness that it's a nice change to see him thinking about himself. And every night I leave, I'd thank him for the dinner and he would say "I'll send ya bill. Drive safe, the deer are out!" And I would be on my way.
Losing my mom and feeling like there aren't enough memories there to get me through the rest of my years without her, has made building memories and paying attention that much more important. I'm going to lose my dad someday. I'm going to lose one of my best friends someday. Depending on how long I live, I could end up losing a lot of people I care about.
At 23 years old, there may not be many things I am aware of. But one thing I do know I am aware of, is I have one regret in my entire life. And that was not cherishing the moments I had with my mom nearly enough. So I continue to challenge myself to cherish all my moments. I make it a conscious decision to pay attention to the details about my life, about my loved ones.
Like my friend Cassie.. I've always known how much she loves to laugh and how easy it is to make her laugh with her quirky sense of humor but now it's one of the things I appreciate the most about her and it's something I'll always be able to remember. Like laying in bed for one of our many sleepovers and she would lay there and read the silliest (and sometimes really lame) jokes but she would let all of her laughter out, not holding back an ounce of it. And I love that about her. I actually even envy that quality she has.
I strive to appreciate my job and every single one of my clients. And when I'm with them, I try to stop thinking about everything else going on in my life and focus on them. Because even though I am there to help them, they are teaching me things everyday, helping me to become a better social worker. I am not there with them just for a paycheck. I am there because our lives brought us together and for some reason I ended up as there worker. And I need to be alive, in that moment with them.
I need to be alive and presence in all my moments. It is easy to disappear when someone is talking about something we don't really care about or when our facebook notifications are blowing up or a cute boy is texting us. It's easy to forget about the moment just to try and capture a picture or tweet about it. It's easy to be listening to your friend talking to you about her life and for some reason your mind starts wandering off to all the things you have left to do today.
But I don't want to get lost and disappear anymore. I don't want to miss anymore memories. I don't want to have any regrets.
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