Sixteen Years

Let me preface this blog post by saying that God has given me an amazing woman to step into the mom and mimi roll.  It hasn't always been easy for any of us, but over time we've formed a wonderful relationship, and my children and I are blessed to have her.

I can remember it like it was yesterday.  I was about to spend the night with my best friend and go see Clueless in the movie theater.  I went back to the hospital after registering for my sophomore year of high school.  Stepping off the elevator to see the look on my uncle's face, I knew my mom had died.  Friends and family were crowded in an empty hospital room crying and loving on each other.  The long drive home.  Sitting in the front yard with friends who tried to make me smile while the grown ups sat inside.  Feeling devastated.  Numb.  Angry.  Confused.  So many emotions for a fifteen year old girl with her whole life ahead of her.  Going back to school and seeing the kids whispering.  Of course they were whispering.  What do you say to a girl whose mom just died?  That's one of those things no one thinks they'll ever experience, and it had just happened to someone they know.  The one person who acted like nothing had changed quickly became my best friend while I pushed away everyone that looked at me with sad eyes and said, "I'm sorry" for what seemed like the hundredth time.  The days dragged by, but eventually time began to pass a little faster, and I learned how to smile and have fun again.

In August it will be sixteen years since my mom died.  I still miss her terribly.  I think about her every single day.  Most days I have happy thoughts filled with great childhood memories.  But some days are still hard.  Sometimes the smallest thing can trigger a hard day, and I'll cry and cry.  This doesn't happen very often, but I think that even when I'm old and wobbly there will still be hard days where I miss my mom.  She visits me in my dreams, and sometimes I wake up thinking it was all a mistake.  She's going to walk in the room and say, "Good morning, Bitsy." Of course I know this will never happen; I'm not crazy.  It makes me sad that she'll never get to know my children, but then I think that the God I know and love has allowed my mom to watch over us and let her see things in my children that I have not seen yet.  Having a little girl was a big deal to me.  I hope and pray that I can grow old and experience things with my daughter that I didn't get to experience with my mom: her first date, her high school graduation and moving into her college dorm room, her wedding and the birth of her children.  I hope to experience the little things with her like her first pedicure, and I hope she'll be able to talk to me about all the things that are so huge to a teenage girl like how girls can be so cruel and how she has a huge crush on the popular boy who doesn't know she exists.

While I still find myself asking God why He let this happen, I know I'll never know or understand why.  I just know that God needed a special angel, and my mom was the one for the job.  I also know that I'll see her again one day, and in that I find peace.