distance

Hey everyone,

It's out of habit that I still say that, because back when I started this blog there were people that were on blogger. Now I don't really know of anyone. It's probably better that way, so I can just say these things and get them out without having to account for them.

I brought one of the lilies in our garden to my mom the other day.

I thought that they might be more meaningful if they came from my mom's garden, versus the store. I don't know. It's more comforting for me, really.

I was thinking of the picture mom drew that I talked about in the last post. She said she loved sunshine & flowers, and the day was beautiful. I awkwardly crouched by her gravestone and told her that it was "sunny out today." And by told her, I mean I quietly mumbled it because there was a lady chatting on her phone in the cemetery parking lot, and I didn't want to look like I was talking to myself, and I didn't want to look pathetic as I talked to my mom's grave.

I'm really very lonely.

I'm moving to the other side of the world in 14 days and I feel other than my family there are maybe one or two others that might miss me. Well, I know for sure Dani will miss me. She's told me and I'm going to miss her too. My pets will miss me as well, but people, not so much.

I wish I was leaving the country with a firmer foundation than I have right now. That makes it harder to leave, but it's also there when you crumble.

I've thrown out a lot of my possessions, and I'll have to leave even more behind and...there's something about that that's freeing, but it's still very lonely. I can't help but think that I'm throwing things out as a way to pacify the part of me that's missing my mother. Whenever I can't decide if I want to keep something, I tell myself, "Well, you already lost mom, what else could be that important?" and I throw it out.

Here is the picture from last week that I was talking about. With that said, I'm going to stop typing.

Want to live & Love family

Hey, everyone.

I was just doing laundry and I looked over and saw my mom's "joy box." It's a colorful pink box with foam letters spelling out "RoAnne's Joy Box" on the side. The joy box is what we stored all of the letters mom got from people during the two years she was fighting cancer.

I'd never really glanced at it too much, because it was full of letters and those tend to say the same thing. Maybe not. I'm going to investigate them. My mom is gone, and I don't think she'd mind anyway if I did read through some of them. Maybe I'll be able to pick up a story or two.

But anyway, there's a drawing of flowers in the box that I'd kind of glanced over every time I saw it. However, today I noticed it said "I love sunshine" in scribbly blue letters. I then realized it was my mom's handwriting. I pulled the poster out of the box and saw it for what it really was.

My mom drew a picture of flowers in a box and around the outside of the flowers are the phrases:

"I love sunshine"
"Want to live & Love family"
"Keeep going & praying"
"Life is good"
"unconditional Love"
"Sisters" with a heart drawn next to it, leading me to believe she drew this with Aunt Jane.
"Cancer sucks & is scary"
"Flowers are awesome"

I could tell she wrote this when she was getting radiation to the brain, because her handwriting was shaky, and some words were messed up, but it was her handwriting. And in her handwriting she had written that she wanted to live. These words echoed for me as a reminder of when last summer I was sitting on the porch with her and she told me that all she wanted was "more time with her kids."

Mom wanted to live so bad. Mom wanted to live and love family, and I really wanted that too. I, of course, started crying. Even now I can't exactly stop. It's been hard being home without her. I'm throwing a lot of my stuff away and getting ready to move to Japan. I feel like I can make a somewhat new start over there, but just because you go overseas, doesn't mean your problems disappear. I just miss her so much. I miss her every day. It's hard to believe that in 17 days it will be 6 months since she passed. I want to see her so badly, but I can't and it hurts so bad.

I wish the flower drawing had come true.