just another day

This past weekend we had to move the remaining possessions of my mom’s from her house. Everything is now packed away in storage, my sister’s house or my car. Basically everything is stored where ever it would fit right now. Phase One: Removing Possessions accomplished. Now begins Phase Two: The Sorting. It makes me sick to my stomach every time I have to sort through my mom’s things and decide if it is to keep or to throw away. I want to keep everything. I don’t want to throw anything of hers away. I feel like I am losing her all over again. Life feels like the movie “Groundhog Day” once more. Every day is the same. I think part of it is knowing that once the sorting is finally done, it is really over. At least if I have her stuff and it isn’t sorted I know that it isn’t completely done…parts of her life still remain. I know…I know…crazy…I know.

It is just with each passing day I am moving further away from her. Hours have turned into days, days into weeks, and weeks into almost two months. In twelve days it will be two months since her death. Soon it will be two months since I saw her, spoke to her or spent time with her. It still doesn’t seem real.

While moving her things out of my step-father’s house I saw the hummingbirds. My mom loved hummingbirds. Hummingbirds were the only birds she enjoyed. Every year on Mother’s Day she would put out the hummingbird feeder right outside the window at the kitchen table. She would wait and like clockwork the hummingbirds would arrive on Mother’s Day. Rain or shine, the birds came. You could set your watch by it. This year she did not make it to Mother’s Day. She did not see the birds arrive. Neither did I. I saw them this weekend though, and it brought me to tears.

I just cannot believe she is gone. I still feel so lost. I feel like a paper sailboat floating downstream…slowing sinking as it goes.

Today I ran some errands. As I pulled into the Wal-Mart parking lot, the Tim McGraw song “Live Like You Were Dying” came on the radio. Which was odd, since it wasn’t a country radio station. Tim’s father passed away not too long ago from cancer. My mom had given me the Reader’s Digest article about Tim, his father and their journey through cancer. The minute I heard the song it triggered the memory of my mom giving me the article to read. I cried. I cried and cried and cried. I just sat in my car and cried. I then shut off the car, took a deep breath and continued with the day. You never know when those moments will hit, and that is the scary part. All of sudden, like a tidal wave…everything comes crashing down around you. The moments are not as frequent, but they are just as intense.

Tomorrow I begin Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. I cannot believe it is starting already. I feel overwhelmed, good thing I have a pretty solid poker face. My mom made me promise that I would still direct the show when we found out she was dying. I tried to get out of it, but she would not let me. She told me she would be greatly disappointed if I did not do it. So I am. Part of me understands now why she made me promise her I would. It is forcing me to get back on the horse so to say. If I wasn’t doing this show…I don’t know if I ever would do one again. I like to think I would, but I honestly doubt it. I would probably just lay in the bed and wait until it was my time to meet my maker. But…now…tomorrow night I will be working back onstage with a cast of nearly a hundred. The promise is making me rejoin the land of the living. In my heart I am thankful for that.

I am tired…I know already that tomorrow is going to be a long day.