A goodbye love letter to you...

  I sat across from my dad at lunch, yesterday, and asked him, "Do you know what tomorrow is?" He said, "Yeah. 1 year." And his eyes grew damp. "I'll never forget walking into that room..." He didn't continue. I didn't ask him to. "I'll never forget the police officer banging on my door at 1130 at night..." I didn't continue. He didn't ask me to.

 "This journal was given to me several years ago by my children. I know they wanted me to write down my thoughts to get through the rough times I was going through at the time. I did not start this at that time. Why am I starting it now? Well, I only thought I had been through hell back then, but now I realize I didn't have any idea what heartache was until Aug 15, 2010 -"

  This is the beginning of one of my mother's journals. A journal she started a little over a month after Andy died. And she wrote it--to him. 

"Dear Mother - Today is the day before Mother's Day and for the second time I wish that this day would pass and be just like another day. The first time I felt this way was in 2011, the Mother's Day after Andy died. I was so very broken and wasn't sure I could make it through. This one is because April 2nd you went to be with the Lord. I remember crying on your shoulder at the time of Andy's death and you comforted me. But you're not here to comfort me on your death."

  This is the beginning of another one of my mother's journals. A journal she started just over a month after Gram, her mother, died. And she wrote it--to her. 

  

  In all of the sadness, in all of the disgusting, raw, unequivocal thoughts and feelings of a parent who buries a child, and a daughter who loses her mother, she wrote. She wrote all of her pain down and now I find myself swimming through the blood she bled on these pages.

  The beauty of these blood-red pages, is that I knew this. I knew this stuff. Mom and I were intimate. But I can recall her trying to "reach" me while I was in the throes of my own pain of losing my only brother and best friend...and I shunned her. Without remorse...because in my own pain, I couldn't find any. Her journal paints forgiveness to me without feeling like she needed to give it because she didn't demand it from me. Reading her pain has been difficult but healing. 

  It took me 11.5 months to be able to sit down and read through these without losing my shit and walking away. And, I'll be honest, I have to be in a high frame of mind before I can crack open those books that I know will sink me. I figure if I start high, then I won't go too low. 

  There is a moment in both of these journals that the audience ceases to be Andy and Gram and becomes me. "If you are reading this I'm either not able to take care of myself or already gone - I thought I would start a goodbye, love letter to you." And she did. And she broke me. With all of her undeserving praise, and brutally honest pain, from the highs of finding out I was pregnant (twice) to the death of her sister and father and the slow crumbling of her physical body...she wrote her goodbye. Of course, I wish that it would have continued for years to come, but I have these precious pages that I will cling to for the rest of my earthly life.

  I thought it best if I wrote her a goodbye love letter of my own.

 Mom:

     I would like to think that I knew what a strong person you were, and perhaps I had an idea...but nothing--NOT a THING could have prepared me for the strength I have come to see in you and understand from reading you. I'm breath-taken. I'm astounded. I'm privileged to have called you my mother. If I could canonize you myself, I would not hesitate. If there is a fraction of the woman you were in side of me, then I have nothing to fear and everything to gain. Your love was truly never-ending. Your deepest, darkest thoughts and feelings were always rimmed in the love of Christ, and for that...*whew* Wow. Your immense physical pain was coated in the hope of God's strength. I'm blown away...

    I am not ready, yet, to say goodbye, and my truly only comforting thought is that you are once again experiencing one of Andy's "totally unconditional love" hugs. So, let's not. Not yet. For now, "Get good rest"...and sleep with the angels.