Missing Mommmiedobbbie: Seven Months Today

Days now are beginning to let happiness leak into my life, but that happiness is frequently followed by sudden sickness in my soul: she isn't coming home. She was hospitalized a few times over the years when I was small and more often, lately. I knew the joy of preparing for her to return: cleaning and planning and getting all her favorite things ready for a period of recuperation. When she came home that final time in December, she was in extremis, dying, not HER -- she didn't know that things were ready for her, she wasn't aware of much except pain and fear. So I guess in my heart, she didn't really ever come back. And when I relax and feel "normal"  that joy of expectation returns and explodes into sudden grief. She isn't coming home. No matter how nice I make things, how many times I clean, what I do to make the house (and me!) what she would expect, she won't be coming back and it's searing. Like sticking a finger in boiling water. Only it's my heart. Anyway, that's the exception. The sweet joys and that dreadful grief aren't the standard days now. Mostly I'm still on the edge of feeling hopeful and happy. I know that I'll get past this. Each step has been tough and this one is going to take me to another one...but over all, it's getting better.

Here's Mom -- and me -- a million years ago:

Nice.