National Daughter’s Day

What does it mean on National Daughter’s Day that I’m no longer a daughter? My mom passed away from her Alzheimer’s disease on December 31, 2018. I didn’t blog much in the last year of her life – it was just too hard. I tried to find the funny moments to share, but there weren’t many. If you’ve read past blog posts, you read about my mom’s journey with this disease, my journey with her, the hilarity that can often ensue with someone who has Alzheimers and/or dementia, and the impact of it on us both. When she died, it was a relief, it was a release for her. I wasn’t as sad as I thought I might be, until I realized that I had already done most of my grieving throughout the four years she slid further and further away from me. In the end, she was a tiny, frail wisp of her former self, and I wanted her to go, to be with Jesus, reunited with my Dad again, who (as I told him several times in the years after he passed away but my mom was still with us) had gotten his alone time away from my mom and it was time for them to be together again.

The morning she died, my best friend Carol came to hang out with my sister and I, but I realized I needed to buy new bras, so we went up to the mall to do some “grief shopping.” This was on New Years Eve. We were buying lingerie. The sweet girl behind the counter said “Oh I hope you’re having the best New Years’ Eve plans and get to have a great party tonight!”  Carol was standing behind me whispering in my ear “tell her your mom just died an hour ago, tell her. It will really freak her out. Tell her.” I didn’t’ tell her. I couldn’t do that to anyone.

And now, nine months later I’m still trying to figure out what I’m supposed to be, and who I’m supposed to be. I’m no longer a daughter. I’m not a wife, I’m not a mother, I don’t want my primary role identifier to be a teacher – that’s my job, not who I am. I don’t know who I am.

I miss my mom so much. I miss holding her hand. I miss every time I would go see her in the Assisted Living Center she would hold my hand and tell me I was pretty.  I miss having someone hold my hand and tell me I’m pretty.

What I do know is that I feel happy again after a long long time of trying to remember the last happy day I had. I feel optimistic more often than not, and now can count more hopeful days than hopeless moments that were a struggle to make it through. I have a necklace that I sometimes wear that says “hope” on it, and over the last year, I find myself holding that necklace in the middle of the day – literally grabbing on to hope. I believe in hope, I believe in healing, I believe in restoration and new beginnings, and I’m starting to believe in optimism again, if only a little at a time. But that’s what healing is, right? Little baby steps forward one at a time.