Ahhh, the new year. It smells fresh. It's, well, new. It's full of hope. It's full of resolutions and goals. It's a blank slate...at least that's what it used to be for me.
The new year usually sees me reflecting on what I did or didn't do in the previous year. The new year brings out all sorts of thoughts, feelings and emotions - most that I don't want to deal with.
Now the reality of starting a new year without mom has a whole different meaning. This year I'm looking back over the year with sadness, sorrow, pain and loss. And I'm ready to look forward to 2018 with less than all those emotions. They will always be my bedfellows, but they don't have to hog the covers.
Grief is a funny thing. Fickle really. When it hits you, it hits hard. You lose your breath. You lose your focus. You lose everything...and all you can do it think about what you've lost. It has a way of leading us down a path to really reflect on the past and not on the future. The future looks bleaker than it did... without Mom. While it's already difficult to enjoy, or tolerate, the present, the future is full of memories of a person we lost too soon. The "What would she be doing..." comments are never ending. Or "Mom would have loved this..." are constant. The new year is a realization that this is a year that Mom will no longer be a part of this new year, or any new year.
And just when I think I can't handle it anymore...I feel this little tap on my shoulder telling me that while she's not physically here, she's still by my side throughout everything I do this year. In fact, I open my mouth and I swear my mother comes out.
While I have to focus on the grief and really deal with it and not stuff it into the closet to deal with later, I'm going to dedicate this year to me and to Mom. I'm going to do things that would make her proud. I'm going to live my life in a way that she didn't get to and that she'd want me to. I'm going to live the year for her.
So as I sit here on New Year's Eve contemplating 2017 and the expectations of 2018, I'm doing so with Mom.
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