The Summer of Great Sorrows (TSoGS) last year, was the summer that took my Daddy’s life. His funeral was on the day of my Danny Boy’s birth. It was like grieving them both on the same day; new death and unforgotten death; together, buried on the same day. That day I greive two of the men I love unconditionally. They are out of my earthly life forever. It is the worst day on the “Jana” calendar; a day of my heart’s forever grief.
TSoGS also robbed my mommy.
I know. Mommy is not a word an adult uses for her mother. I did not know Mommy was a young child’s nickname for ‘Mother’ I thought “Mommy” was Helen Tisdale’s name.
Her name is still Mommy to me. When death takes her; I will be an earthly orphan, with both Mommy and Daddy: gone. It will replace 6/29/2018 as the worst day on the “Jana” calendar.
In The SoGS; there was a tragic accident that ended the life of my daddy in five short days and robbed my mommy of who she used to be.
It is certainly hard to reconcile in one’s heart that the best day of your life was one of the thousands of days that came before this day… but you don’t remember which day it was, or what happened on that day. That is what the accident took from my mom.
It took the memory of the best day of her life. It took the memories of all of the best days of her life.
She has so many jumbled long term memories, and then she has a short-term loop of memory.
I call her my Day-to-day-Mommy. She knows me. Every day she knows me. Every day she knows me but can’t remember yesterday.
‘I have never been to see her, and she wishes I would just call!’ (Her perception not her reality.)
My Day-to-day-Mommy is someone I am extremely grateful for, and am happy to have in my life, but she breaks my heart when she does not remember yesterday.
My Day-to-day-Mommy; I love you.
If Daddy and Mommy had both been killed in the accident during TSoGS, perhaps it would have been a more joyous exit from this earth for her. I think, however, it would have been the ruin of me.
We each must endure the heartaches we face; sometimes that means we are alone. Only we, know our own hearts; we know, and God knows. He sees our sorrow.
I hold to the belief that a day is a gift. My mom has been given additional days, and rather than being something that she just has to endure; there will be purpose and beauty. She (and I) will diligently seek the gift. It was a choice we did not make. It is not where we want to be, but it is where we are. This is the saying my mom coined after Dan’s death and is the grass burr behind my cerebral cortex.
“It is not where we want to be, but it is where we are.”
It is an unusual gift. No one wants undies for Christmas; but undies are a practical gift. Gifts are not always faery dust and joyous magical thing-a-ma-bobs. Some gifts are practical, useful and questionable. These gifts of days for my mom and me are like that… in our season of waterproof mascara, or naked eyelashes…we will unwrap this gift; me and my Day-to-day-Mommy.
It is where we are.
