The hard month

May is hard.  This year, it's the firsts.

The first Mother's Day without my mom.
The first birthday without Mom to celebrate it. She would have been 63.

We also just said "until then" to my Great Aunt Louise, and her funeral is two days after Mom's birthday.

Mother's Day was a complete haze for me, as I contracted some virus at work and was sick all weekend long. I spent most of the day sleeping and trying to get excited about eating a small piece of toast. I couldn't bear to see all of the Mother's Day ads and posts.

I'm finding that it's harder to remember things. I don't remember the last real conversation Mom had with me before she died. Those last few weeks, I'd call and talk, but she really couldn't engage much. Mainly she'd listen and I'd hear her crying (Dad would put it on speakerphone).  I'm sure the last thing she said was "I love you," because I never said goodbye without saying it to her. But I'm finding it really difficult to deal with the fact that I wasn't there physically for so long. It was the right decision, but this week, I wish I could have held her hand one more time.

Things just aren't the same. She was my best friend, whom I called almost every day.  These days... I don't have that anymore.  I get more calls from my bosses than from anyone else. My brother barely says two words to me - or anyone else - and my dad is just trying to make it one day at a time back at work. I feel cut off from everything. There are other family members, sure, but no one whom I can talk to the way I could talk to Mom.

And this month, it's especially hard.