20 Years....

20 years.... it just doesn't seem possible that 20 years ago I lost my Mother.  How does the time fly by so fast?  And on top of that, how have 20 years gone by and it still feel so fresh, and there's so much my mind has yet to sort out.

Losing a parent is NEVER, never, NEVER ever easy, so don't misinterpret what I'm saying here, but losing a parent as a young child is incredibly difficult.  A young child (I was just a couple months shy of my 8th birthday) doesn't comprehend that death is long term.  When I think back to that morning that I was told that she had passed, while I don't remember a lot, I DO remember a lot of people crying, a lot of people hugging on me, and just simply standing there trying to figure it all out and thinking that I should be crying.  I don't know that I understood what death was-- how could I?  Did I even have any experience to compare it to?  But I think about people who are older, people who lose a parent in their teens for example, they know the years that lay ahead.  They know that person won't be there for high school graduation, or wedding, or babies being born... etc.

It wasn't until my later years that I felt like I could truly grieve because I finally understood what death meant.  And by then, no one else was talking about it.  I SO craved for someone to just sit with me and talk about her-- tell me all they remembered, tell me what she was like, explain to me more about her diagnosis, how she handled being sick for so long... I was so little, my memories of her are so few, and no one was talking.  Don't get me wrong, everyone carries those memories, and everyone who knew her, misses her dearly, but when I needed to talk, it felt like everyone was done talking.

So, 20 years.... 20 years gone by and still so many emotions well up inside.

It wasn't until Leeland was born that I first understood a Mother's love for her children.  It wasn't until I knew that deep love that I have for both of my children, that I broke for my Mom even more.  To think about how she felt facing death and leaving the children that she loved so much.  To think about how my little boys would feel losing me.  It broke me.

Sometimes I question what healing is.  As the years have gone by and more milestones pass-- I graduated high school, got married, graduated college, birthed two children.... as these major life events come and go, I still feel that pit that she isn't here.  I don't know that the pit ever goes away? And now as a Mom myself, I have that fear that one day my kids will have that pit too.  I'm not afraid of death-- I have a strong confidence of what will happen to me once I die, and I know that I will be ok, BUT, having carried a pit with me now for 20 years, a longing for my Mom, I am afraid of my children carrying it one day too.

So 20 years.... 20 years have gone by without her.

Mommy

July 13, 1960 - November 5, 1994

"He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.” -Revelation 21:4