A Gift Long Overdue

Yesterday I did something that had been 14 years in the making.  I went to put flowers on my mom’s grave.

About twice a year (the holiday season and late June-mid July) I fall into a funk.  Right around my birthday and the holiday’s I get pretty sad.  Typically birthday’s and holidays are when people spend time with their families.  For me it’s like holding a magnifying glass up to my not-so-ideal family reality.  I spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with my Aunt & Uncle and Cousins and they are my “family”, but it’s still painful to know who isn’t there to celebrate with us.

Shortly after my 14th birthday, my mom was diagnosed with cancer.  I spent the first few months of high school visiting my mom in the hospital.  We went to a wig store to buy her a really nice wig.  No one ever told me it was terminal, I guess I never even allowed myself to consider the reality.  After a while, my mom came home from the hospital.  One day in November were going to my aunt and uncles for dinner, but I was hungry so we stopped at Mc. Donald’s to get an order of french fries.  I had to wait for the fries to finish cooking.  My mom, tired of waiting for me, came in and went crazy on the woman behind the counter.  She yelled at the woman and told her that she was dying and shouldn’t have to spend all afternoon waiting for french fries (really it had been less than 5 minutes).  We got back in the car without the fries and I asked my mom if it was true that she was dying.  She said things would be fine and that she was just angry.

A few weeks later we had my first high school cheerleading competition – my mom was there…in a wheel chair

A few weeks after that a hospital bed showed up in my living room along with our first cable box (my mom wanted to watch designing women)

A few weeks after that my mom celebrated her 40th birthday.

A few weeks after that (6 months after her diagnosis) my mom passed away in her sleep, in the hospital bed that sat in the living room.  I was on the couch.  We were supposed to eat baked chicken for dinner.  My aunt made it…I knew it would be good and after playing in the snow all day, I was excited for a good dinner.

My dad, whom I had known for less than 2 years at this point lived with us.  He woke up, realizing she had passed away, and went crazy.  He attacked me that night.  I was trying to call hospice.  He wanted the ambulance.  I was 14, trying to be strong…I ended up with a delayed phone call to hospice, a broken bedroom door and a bruised arm.  Still no dinner.  About a month later was the last time I ever saw my dad…just as quickly as he entered my life he disappeared from it again.

Yesterday morning I found myself thinking about funerals and death and all that goes with it.  Eventually I got out of bed, showered and decided that it was time for me to face what I’ve avoided for so long.  I can’t change the past, but I want to move on…

My grandma used to make me go with her.   As I became old enough to drive and work I stopped going all together.  I’ve never taken flowers to her grave on my own accord.  It’s been 14 years.  I’m tried of being sad and grumpy because she isn’t here.  I’m tired of being so affected by her death and the void it has left.

My birthday is Friday…I thought it might be a good step for me to finally take her flowers.  She, pregnant and single at the age of 25, a practicing alcoholic, and crazy, decided to keep the baby that was growing inside her.  By God’s grace, I was born a very healthy baby.  She raised me with the help of my Grandmother for 14 years.  She tried to do what she could during our short time together.  Remembering her and taking flowers to her grave is really the least I could do.  It’s only taken me 14 years to come around to the idea…and maybe therein lies a little bit of closure.

I can’t say that I won’t get sad this holiday season, but I think this was a good and long over-due step in my life.  With the help of counseling, I’ve dealt with most of the anger that has built up because of her death, but there is still some softer wounds that need to be healed.  I’ve seen that clearly over the last few weeks…I just wanted to do what I could to maybe move that healing process along.  Yeah, so this is my life…and today I feel better than I have felt in weeks.  I’m not saying I’m out of my slump yet, but I do feel really good today and I can’t help but wonder if it’s in part because I finally left flowers for my mom…a gift that was long overdue.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom

So apparently today is mother’s day.  For obvious reasons, it’s a day that often comes and goes without me really thinking about or realizing the holiday is here.  The reason I know it’s today is because I had a co-worker (not knowing anything about me) ask what I had planned for Mother’s Day. Yesterday, my accountability partner pulled out the card she had for her mom and inquired as to whether this day was a hard day for me.  Not really.  Christmas and birthdays, yes…but not so much mother’s day.  Usually it’s out-of-sight-out-of-mind. 

 I was speaking to a counselor a few years ago and she asked me to describe my mom.  It’s funny how little I remember about her or life with her.  I was 14 when she died, but I still remember so little.  I think I became good at blocking things out of my memory.  I remember she was in AA, and I remember going every Saturday night after watching Star Search.  I spoke at her 10 year anniversary of sobriety.  It was funny because for the first time I realized that her sobriety matched up with my age (she went into AA 4 or 5 months after I was born)…I thought it was the coolest thing ever.  I also remember finding her drunk in a parking lot 3 years later.  She was with my biological dad.  I was very upset with her and ran away to grandma’s house in the apartment complex next to mine.  My mom was a smoker and worried a lot.  She was a stressed out person in general and would snap at me if I sang a little too loud, danced around the house a little too much, or asked too many questions.  Being older and wiser myself, I am able to look back I can see just how lonely she was.  I also realize the grip that manic depression had on her. 

Not all of my memories were bad, however.  I remember baking cookies with her.  She was a huge influence on our apartment community.  They still have a tree planted in her honor with a plaque giving tribute to her service to the community – the kids and the family events.  She was the recipient of some big award, but unfortunately she died a month before it was to be announced – I wonder if she ever allowed herself to see the great impact she had on the people around her.  Every year we would go to Ocean City for a week of summer vacation.  Around the time I turned 9, money got even tighter so we had to change our summer vacation plans to a 2 day trip to Kings Dominion.  I loved that change because I love roller coasters. 

 My mom was good with math and when she worked, she was a bookkeeper and did people’s taxes.  She would always encourage me with my own math ability…and to this day I insist on doing my own taxes, by hand.  Plus I’m an engineer.  I wonder if that’s, in any way, her influence.  My mom was the one who brought poetry to life for me.  She encouraged me to write the things on my mind and heart.  I started writing around the age of 7, maybe even before that, and continue writing today.  I don’t say that in arrogance…I don’t think my poetry is the best thing since sliced bread, but it’s mine and its real so I like it.  In some ways it’s the only way I know to express myself.  This is a huge part of my life and the root of it lies with my mom…that I think is pretty sweet.    

 God allows things to happen in our lives for a reason, and I know that my mom wrote to God, but I don’t know where Jesus stood with her (AA teaches of a higher being God, not so much Jesus).  I wonder about that today.  I also wish I could sit down and ask her about her life.  What was so bad about her life and experience that caused her to turn to alcohol at 14 and that drove her to depression and such deep rooted anger.  There is so much generational sin and bondage in my family…I wish I knew were it came from.      

 So, I love my mom.  I don’t remember much about her, but since today is mother’s day, I figured I could write about her.  She had a tough life, and together we had a tougher life…nonetheless it was a life filled with love.  And for that I’m grateful.

This was a poem she wrote me.  I have it hanging on my wall in my room… 

“Amy

The Birth of a baby, the life of a child
How can I express all my feelings inside
A part of my world, the sunshine of each day
A genuine love for no price can pay.

Oh daughter of mine, so dear to my heart
we have a new live, we can make a fresh start
a sensation so real, the warmth in the air
your something special, I love you, I care.

~Mom”

 

Patsy W. Krug
Jan. 9, 1956 – Feb 3, 1996