Well, it been quite some time, hasn’t it?
If I could count the number of times I’ve signed 
into my Blog….….…....and then left it.
Only just today do i understand why. 
Writing this first entry after my Mom’s story has proven to be one of the most difficult and challenging transitions of my life. It’s like finally admitting that life does indeed go on….
Oh, and Life has been so unceasingly busy this year. Go Figure. That I have perhaps orchestrated it that way is not lost on me. With no time to pause and reflect, to sit with the pain and emptiness that comes on Sunday mornings when I call her to share… hand frozen on the phone as I remember.
When I have to make trips back to the Island on that ferry and the pain crawls in close then as I 
usually miss a boat and am left with no choice but to sit quietly for 2 hrs surrounded with decades of memories. As randomly as grocery shopping…Chocolate….Lilacs…The screwy hour hand on the clock in my kitchen……my mohair hand knitted mittens.
Christmas…
……..
I have been for the most part able to carry on as if she may soon be coming back….But like her dear Soul Dog, Toby, I have finally begun to get that she is just not coming back.
Ever.
I had a visit with him last time on the Island, and he was just done waiting and so, off he went off to find her
. Another piece of her goes as well for us, and yet, life goes on…
Don’t get me wrong….I love life and understand its ebb and flow and rhythms that color it and shape it and mold it to be always perfect, balanced and natural intellectually and spiritually. But Emotionally?
It hurts like hell and I miss my mom so much it staggers me sometimes.
I will heal. I will allow the pain to come in and pass thru. I will be still enough to feel. I know that she has never left me. I see her in every Red Tailed Hawk that flies so often in my path whenever I am unsure or question…..
This grieving process is a first timer for me and my compassion for those who have lost one so close knows no bounds now…I get it. Hiding in buckets of work is what we Travers’s like to do, and feeling the bad stuff sucks, but better out then in. So I learn a new ability. I feel the tender raw new sensations and the dirty, gritty, rotten old ones as well. The sweet taste of memories running down my face, the empty ache inside that I simply just need to allow myself to surrender to. 
Odd I suppose that it has taken so long for me to really feel this, but then again, I guess not. I am the past master at not feeling, and well well well…don’t old habits die hard when the chips are down.
The most beautiful thing about all this though? The only thing I need to do is also the hardest thing to do. Feel and feel and feel and feel and feel and then…
Let Go…
and begin again.
Beautiful.
I’ve gone through this exactly. And parts of me still have not picked up the pieces I’ve dropped and carried on. Still in suspension, perhaps frozen forever. Some of those pieces were the poignant co sharing of planting flowers together, shopping at nurseries, planting a garden. 14 years later and not many flowers planted. 14 years and I’ve just attempted to plant a wee garden. I used to be able to name most flowers 14 years ago. Today, their names tentatively cross my lips, unsure if I am correct.
And that’s alright. It’s how I’ve coped.
Now, when ever I’m doing something and my mind is preoccupied with whatever I’m doing and all of a sudden my mother crosses my mind, I say aloud ‘Hello Momma’. I believe she’s stopped by and lightly touched my soul. I used to cry, but now I smile.
And do I miss her still? That never goes away. But instead shifts off kilter and the memories wrap you up with warmth from the love you still have inside. All of you is all of her as is your father. I personally take comfort with that energy as well and I allow that to strengthen me. She is still inside of me.
Welcome back Stefanie, and thank you for sharing those beautiful words and touching my heart with them.
I’ve kept you blog in my favorites hoping you’ll return. I can only imagine the emotions that come with loosing your Mom. Many soft hugs, and welcome back.