Sometimes I have to laugh at myself… I used to be someone who didn’t understand the people who cried at movies. I can think of maybe a dozen movies, if even that many, that made me cry in my first 31 years of life.
Now is a different story. I pretty much assume that I will cry at most movies. I never know what is going to hit me, when, how or where. The only guarantee is that if it is a Disney or a Disney Pixar movie, you will see me crying by the end of it. Sometimes visibly shaking and usually barely able to contain the sounds of sobs. Moana? Coco? Me… dead. Can’t do it. But I do. And it gets me right in the gut every time.
The latest attacker on my usually stoic and/or sarcastic disposition? Mamma Mia- Here We Go Again. Damn. I won’t spoil anything… but as my oldest daughter would say “you got me cryin’ in the club!” If you can’t tell, she’s just like her mama, and is pretty uncomfortable when those feelings start to creep out of her eyeballs and she is reminded that she has a soul and heart that is bigger than most, no mater how hard she tries to pretend she doesn’t. So my kid.
I know why this happens to me now… it’s why most things in my life have been different the last 6-ish years. Losing my mom.
“Losing people you love affects you. It is buried inside of you and becomes this big, deep hole of ache. It doesn’t magically go away, even when you stop officially mourning.” —Carrie Jones
The void left behind when you lose a parent is unimaginable in it’s enormity. The nothingness left behind is massive and dense in it’s reality. And being a daughter losing their mother? It feels wrong, it feels alien and it feels unnatural every second of every day. A girl is supposed to have her mom. She just is. Nothing will ever make me feel differently about it.
Most of the times I find myself crying during movies because it is in movies that we can see what we wish could happen… we see those moments where the character gets to see the spirit of their loved one or be reunited with them in some way that is tangible and real. And damn, what I wouldn’t give for that kind of magic… that kind of moment. It is what every single dream or wish or prayer I have revolves around.
One more word.
One more hug.
One more glance.
One more moment.
Because 31 years wasn’t enough. I don’t know if any amount of time could have been enough, but one thing I know for certain is that 31 years was not enough. There is a P!nk song that always hits me so hard, called Beam Me Up…
So when I need you can I send you a sign
I’ll burn a candle and turn off the lights
I’ll pick a star and watch you shine
Just beam me up,
Give me a minute, I don’t know what I’d say in it
Probably just stare, happy just to be there, holding your face
Beam me up,
Let me be lighter, I’m tired of being a fighter, I think,
A minute’s enough,
Just beam me up…
Sadly, one gets used to these feelings of being alone and in so many ways feeling empty. On my good days, which I am grateful now out number the bad, I am happy. I believe she is within me, having created and raised me to be strong and capable enough to withstand anything, even a life without her physically in it. I channel everything she was and try to be that for my girls… but in my quiet moments, the thought always is:
“I wish she were here.”
To see everything. To experience everything. To embrace me and especially my girls. She was an amazing mother and a phenomenal grandmother. It’s not just my loss, it’s theirs and that will always kill me inside. At least I got 31 years. They got 7 years and 11 months. There is nothing that will ever make that okay or right in my heart and mind.
All I can do is hope and pray that I am for them even a fraction of what my mom was and is for me. I had the best teacher and example ever, so I am hopeful and optimistic.
I am forever changed by this loss… more raw and vulnerable than ever before. So if you need me, chances are you can find me, crying at the movies. Even the cheerful musical ones. Because like the song said…
In the now & beyond… Nothing & no one can break this bond…
On March 29th, my friend Kristin bravely shared her story, publicly, on Facebook detailing her and her husband Kevin’s personal and private crisis that their family had been dealing with silently for years.
Abigail Elizabeth Rose (Abbi) is a beautiful 16 year old girl. She has severe autism. She has an incredibly rare condition called Doose Syndrome, which means that she has seizures constantly, both myoclonic and aestatic, hundreds per hour, all over her brain. She has been given the diagnosis of Epilepsy, Global Developmental Delay with Regression, Cortical Visual Impairment and Sensory Integration Disorder.
With a Relentless Open Heart 