My turn......

I so desperately want to write, but my mind refuses to allow the ideas to come together in a way that makes it possible.

I always believed that my biggest life changing event was my diagnoses of cancer, but now I know that it is the death of my mother that has had the biggest effect on my life.   I miss her so much.   How do young people deal with this loss, when I who had her for so many years can't seem to fully comprehend her absence.    I have no regrets. I feel blessed to have had so many years.   I am really glad that she isn't here because it was her time.   She had lost all the parts of her life that she so cherished and her purpose on this earth had been served.  Her children were fine, her husband had gone, it was time for her to leave and go to meet him.   I know all this.  Yet I still can't grasp that she is not at the end of the telephone.   I reach for it to tell her a funny story, share an event I know she would love to hear, and she is not there.   In reality, I don't have to phone her, she is closer to me than she has been for years, but still I feel a void.  I loved to call and tell her funny stories and listen to her laugh.  She loved to laugh.    I could always make her laugh....it was my gift I know that.

I feel in many ways the fog of the past few months is starting to rise and I can see things too clearly sometimes.   The pain is more acute and the memories are harder to remember because they make me cry.   I am recovering, but in many ways that just makes it even more difficult.   I do believe I will come out the other end, but I will not be the same.   I will be changed for having her no longer in my life.   I am the adult now.   I am no longer the child, the daughter, now I am the mother and the sister....I have grown up in the past two months.    It is necessary I know but not easy.    We never really achieve adulthood until our parents are gone.....we can still be a child when they are here...no longer though....I am now all grown up.   I thought it would feel different.   I thought by now I would have complete knowledge and wisdom.   Instead, I feel a little uneasy as if I really don't know how to be this person yet.   It will take time, but eventually I will be one of them....the way they were as they too became the next in line.    No umbrellas to scurry under....I am now the umbrella and it is my job to hold it up and cover those behind me.   I pray that I can be that person.

The legacy of a parent is not an easy one to bear....but each of us will come to that time when it is our turn....mine is here.......