1825 days.
Let’s begin with…I don’t even know what to say to start this year’s post.
This year has been tough.
A separate post will have to be written about the year since this post is specifically about mom, but that statement reflects this next one.
Grief is not linear.
That’s what I learned this year I think. And not only that, you think you really got over “it”, but then you realize nope it really doesn’t ever go away. In fact, sometimes it hits you SUPER hard years after.
Also number of years does not constitute whether or not you can still be grieving or not. Do not let people tell you that X number of years is “long enough”. Who is counting? And who gets to tell you when is it “enough”?
There’s been a lot of reflecting this year. There’s been lots of tears. A lot of days missing mom. A lot of days picture what life would be like if she was still around.
The other day, I was at a family friend’s house and a waft of deja vu hit me. If you had the chance to meet and get to know mom, you’ll know that mom was quite the social butterfly and as a family, we used to go visit family friends’ houses all the time to hang out, chat, and of course eat food. It’s been a long while since we’ve done that as a family and being there this time around really made me miss mom. And those days in the past.
This won’t be a super long post, just a reflection piece of this past year.
I will say this, as an application to the things I’ve reflected on the past year:
A lot of you reading this would not know this, but the relationship I had with mom is pretty complicated. We butted heads a lot. Again, this constitutes another blog post to dive deeper or maybe next year’s post. However, what I’m trying to say is that looking back there are things I definitely wished I could change or make better. But as we know, hindsight is 20-20. Even more so, no matter how hard our relationship can be at times, the hole that she left is still big. In fact, my therapist said that because of that relationship, the grieving could take more of a toll.
So my point is this: life is short. Recently I’ve been getting a LOT of reminders about this and how fragile life can be. You never know if you’re going to get a phone call that will flip your life upside down. You don’t know if you get to see or talk to that loved one tomorrow. You don’t know if YOU’re going to be around and for how long. Morbid I know, but it’s just a reminder that again this life is so short. Don’t waste it, not matter how complicated your relationships are.
Value those people in your life. Show them, tell them how much you love and care for them. Invest time into those relationships, because honestly you never know what will happen tomorrow and you don’t want to regret a single moment.
And for those of you who are currently grieving and going through the process, no matter how long its been…you are not alone. I see you.
Miss you mom, more than you know. Celebrating you today.
Kim