And So, I Write…

• September 17, 2020
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Six years ago, we brought my parents from Florida to Texas and moved them in to live with us. At that time, my two daughters came back home from college, and so suddenly, we went from empty nesters living in our downsized home to an overflowing inappropriate nest crowded with three generations. Did I mention that I work full time from my home office? Yet, we stuck it out and eventually within two years both of my daughters found their own home. Since then My parents, my husband and I have been sharing the same home along with my three rescued puppies. Needless to say, I have been collecting stories worth a reality show throughout this experience! In all though, I have been loving it. Of course I get tired sometimes, as we do push our buttons back and forth, but having my parents with me has truly been rewarding as they got to know me as an adult, and I had to get to know them as third age toddlers.

This past November we found a bigger house to accommodate my parent’s needs, and as we were moving into the new place my mother was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. After 8 months, give and take, she finally passed almost three weeks ago. I watched my mother die June 19th…it was the most horrible thing I have ever had to do. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever done for anyone. She did her hospice at home thanks to Corona, which meant that I was her full-time nurse, and hospice visited her to check on her and make adjustments to her palliative care as needed once a week, as well as help with her baths three times a week. My life was filled with my mother’s needs for 8 months, and now since our Big Goodbye, I find myself lost.

I still have my father to take care of, my husband, my girls who call me and visit all the time, my puppies, my work…yet the emptiness swallows everything as I go through a task list with no purpose. My mother is gone. Everything I did for her seems useless now. Where before I was lacking in time, it now drowns me. The biggest fear of losing her no longer exists. I am lost, and do not know how to go back to whatever routine I can manage, so I write.

I write and let it all out. I scream, I cry, I stand silent but as I write, I let it all out and put it out there for others to read, to get a glimpse of what love really is…the giving your heart, your time, your strength, your health, your everything only to see it go all away. So, I write hoping my words take away my pain. So that I can find myself again…find her, who I reluctantly let go almost a month ago, now free and healthy in my heart, in my memory, in who I have become.

In Memory of Vana, Mother, Grandmother, Wife, and friend.