I couldn't stop crying..........

Sometimes in life, on several occasions as a matter of record, I surprise myself to the point of shock. I think I know how I feel about something and it turns out that I am or have been rendered clueless.

My Mother, with whom I had a delicately balanced relationship of mutual "let's talk around the elephant in the middle of the room", died some 8 years ago. She, most all of my life, suffered from one malady or another. First I blamed that on the fact that she kinda had a crush on her DO. He had delivered me and was a very kind and demonstrative man in her life. 

Then she really did have some physical ailments, like the time she poisoned herself with rose food which had bug killer mixed in. She worked all day on her 35 rose bushes and I found her twitching like a "bug" on the ground. She stayed in the hospital for several days that time....after that it was one thing right after another. She had a fool for a surgeon who removed her gall bladder but left stones in her and she became septic. Or when her lungs collapsed and she was in coronary distress. She had her children "gather around her" at these illness times and quite frankly held court and enjoyed the attention.

So I after 40 something years of hearing her cry wolf, be on deaths door, I had become accustomed to hurried trips to the hospital only to be sent home for lack of a true crisis. And also throw in the crys of suicide from the time I was in my teens and I pretty well was dutiful about responding to her "maladies" but not moved by the histrionics.

So that when we found out that she had cancer, I didn't feel much at all. We found out in December and by mid January she was gone. Because I was the one always taking care of things and people and the logistics of the crisis's, I never even said good bye to my Mother. And after her death I kept on the same dance with the funeral, the household, the cleaning out of things, the details of my Father's care, the estate sale and on and on and I never cried or sorrowed or gave myself a chance to grieve. I just kept doing what had always been expected of me.

So this last week when Suzanne of Chickens in the Road shared that her Mother had unexpectedly passed away, I lost it. http://chickensintheroad.com/living/ I felt such intense pain and hurt and loneliness. I was so taken aback by my reaction. At first I honestly thought I was losing my grip on reality. But as I cried and my thoughts became clearer, I realized that I had postponed my grief, had put it aside, had ignored another elephant in the middle of my life, had never faced the loss of my Mother.

Wow, talk about slow on the uptake.

So better late than never......Goodbye Mom, I am so sorry our connection in this life wasn't the best, but I did love you and I do miss you. Rest in Peace.