TWO YEARS

Mourning is a strange and complex thing.  It evolves but yet it never leaves me.  It's been two years since I lost my mom.  I was alone in a hotel room in Canada when I got the call from my brother.  Shock isn't the word to even describe it.  I just walked slowly to the window and stared. I stared out, trying to understand the reality and finality of his words. Was this real?  I had just talked to her the night before.  I had just asked her if she was going to die and she had just told me everything would be alright.  How could my mother be dead?

That question's haunted me ever since.  

How could she be dead? After she passed away, when I was still living in California, I'd walk downstairs still expecting to find her watching tv or working on her computer.  But she wasn't.  She'd never be there again... and that's the most agonizing part of it all. Those moments when I forget she's passed away, and I try to retrieve some part of her but I can't.  

It's been a constant struggle to fight through the sadness and continue with my life.  To sort through the guilt and regret and to avoid the what if's and how come's.  That's something about losing a loved one or parent that I can't explain to people.  Unless you've lost a parent you were really close to it's hard to understand, and even then it's hard to understand how I feel.  I think it's even hard to navigate how people in my own family mourn because everyone deals with loss differently. 

But the thing I always cling to that has always given me peace is that God has a plan.  He had a plan that involved my mom dying when she did.  He has a plan that even now I've only seen the beginning of.  It's a plan I may never fully understand, but it's a plan I believe has great purpose.  

It's interesting though.  Mourning is somewhat of a selfish experience for me.  I think about how I feel and how sad I am without my mother.  How I was too young to lose her.  How I'll never hang out or talk to her again.  How much I hurt without her.  And that's not necessarily a bad thing that I feel those kinds of things, but looking outside of myself the truth is, my mother is living out eternity with our Lord.  She's no longer in pain or going to the hospital or being inhibited by her physical limitations.  She's living in God's glory in heaven.  And that's something I can celebrate when I'm most sad.  That even though I miss her, she really is in a better place. 

My mom will always be the one I crave to confide in and strive to be like.  I miss her like crazy, and I'll always love her with my whole heart.  Even two years later, I still cry over her death and all that I lost.  The pain of losing her will probably never go away, but I find comfort and peace in knowing she's in God's presence.  I will continue to celebrate the life she lived and the new life she's living in heaven.   I praise God for all twenty-nine years He gave me with her.  She was a loving and kind mother, and a great source of joy to all who knew her.