My Bitter-Sweet Holidays

I started writing the following post on Thanksgiving weekend, but had to leave it for a while because it was a bit rough to do. I've been working on it here and there. I wanted to finish and post it, however, so I sat down and finished it.




December 2, 2008
This past holiday week, that being Thanksgiving week, has been an extremely bittersweet one if anything.

The day before Thanksgiving-11/26-I celebrated my 20th wedding anniversary. Between that and Thanksgiving itself you would think it would be a happy celebratory time. And many years ago it was. Sometimes our anniversary actually falls on Thanksgiving Day itself. But 5 years ago, the day after Thanksgiving--11/28-which happens to fall the same way this year--things changed. On that day, my mother passed away at the age of 58. Apparently she had suffered from a brain anuerysm. She was up that morning and went in for a nap. When my dad went in to get her up, he couldn't. By the time she was taken to the hospital, she was brain dead. They kept her on a ventilator until I was able to get there to say goodbye. 2 of my brothers were there, as well. But the oldest of the 3 was in stationed (Army) in another state and could not get back that quick.

This was a very difficult thing. For one it was so surreal to be standing there looking down at her. And to top it off, we hadn't talk for a very long time. Truthfully, I don't even remember how long exactly we were estranged. Long enough though, for me to have already mourned her loss. Her death was in a way hard for me, but in another way it wasn't. If that makes any sense. Because I had already mourned our relationship and moved on from there, her passing didn't have the obvious affect. It did hurt, however, because even though I knew we would never get that relationship back, a part of me hoped one day we could and when she died that hope died with her.

The woman that died was my mother physically but in all trueness she wasn't the mother I knew long ago. My mother was a dominant person. She got jealous extremely easy and always had to be first: to see things, to be told things, etc. If things were done that she didn't approve of or wasn't what she would do, she would let it be known her disapproval, whether it was her business or right to do so. And in most cases, it wasn't. This tended to make our lives miserable at times.

Don't get me wrong, my mother was a loving, Jesus praises, generous person. She just had this other side of her. When she wasn't happy EVERYONE knew!!

Regardless of the unpleasantness, I did have many fond happy memories with her. But sadly, as she got older, she got worse.

Some years before she passed she started having back trouble. She had always had stomach problems. Ulcerated Colitis to be exact. But she wound up having very bad pain in her lower back. She was eventually diagnosed with Arthritis of the back, Fibromiralgia and Diverticulius. Each one of these can cause severe pain, so imagine having all three!! She saw many doctors and took many different medications. Most of which did not work. All it really did was severely affect her already declining personality. By this point, she was basically impossible to be around. Now there was more to the story--that I won't go into--that affected our relationship by this point, so the pain and meds basically broke the last ties. This was a sad thing because obviously, I should have been there for her, to help her through, but she made it ultimately impossible!

So you see why this week --and the upcoming holidays-- are a hard time for me. While I should be happy--and I am, as well as grateful- to be celebrating 20 yrs.-- esp. in this world where the divorce rate is so high-- and the holidays,--when there are so many who haven't had or won't get that chance-- I am also saddened by those turn of events that ultimately changed me forever. I also think about how my daughter never got to meet my mother and vice versa. Sure she had grand-daughters that she got to meet and know before she passed, but there is something special about your daughter's daughter, ya know? And we'll never get to see that.

All this being said, I do have to say that I am extremely thankful and blessed for the family I do have and for being able to celebrate these holidays with ALL of them!!

And I know that she is looking down on us and smiling--but knowing her she's probably a little jealous that she can't be here with us- because it just wouldn't be her if she wasn't! LOL!










^JUST ^j^ BELIEVE^