As we hit $2020 in funds raised so far, I have to sit back and take a deep breath....all this in just a few short weeks! It is amazing to me that one simple thought turned into an idea that lead me to this place in time. I'm going to run a marathon! When really only a few years ago it was all I could do to just get through the day.
As I journal through this training and writing my random thoughts I will be reflecting back on the trials and tribulations of the past 10 years, through my struggles and my grief. What I struggle with as a mother and that special bond with a child.
I guess the 10 year anniversary of Johnathon's passing has really in some way ignited all this, but I think it was well over due. The process of my own healing has been long over due. I'm not sure what it took really, all I know that it was time. I talk about John and his cancer and his life as if it was only a few years ago, then one day I realized...it has been 10 years!! 10 years and I am still holding on so tightly to him.
I know it is not about "letting go" or "moving on" but I somehow feel as if I have been stuck and I'm unable to be the sort of mother to my children now that I was to Johnathon then. I'm not sure if that makes sense or not, but it is something that has been weighing heavily on my mind.
Do I not give as much to my children alive and here with me as I have and continue to give to Johnathon who is no longer with us? It is a question that is hard to ask a mother, let alone try to answer. I'd like to say that it makes me a better mother, but does it really? I no longer have the patience I once did, the stamina for sure. Do I in some sort of way distance myself from my children now for fear of losing one of them? Although we know that I almost did lose Oscar and did lose a child this last summer. So what changes the way I mother now then the way I mothered then? Is it the fact that I know what that deep sense of loss feels like that empty pit of despair and grief. I shutter to the thought of ever having to feel that again.
I find as I work through this journey of healing that I am starting to discover more about myself and why I may have acted in response to my sons death. As I am reaching 40 I like to think that I have a better understanding of who I am, why I have done the things that I have and why I am where I am today. I really have no answer to that.
When Johnathon died I was 25 years old...for me I know and I would say I was just a kid...what did I possibly know about raising a child or being a parent at that age, and surely I had no tools to deal with the heavy burden as that of the loss of a child and not just loss but to watch a baby suffer and struggle as I stood by helplessly. I myself was not even prepared to deal with the issues that faced me. All I knew was that I needed to be there at the side of my baby and do what all us mothers do...love, care and try to comfort, to never leave his side.
When I look back at those days when times were really getting hard and my own mother would stand behind me somewhere in the back of the room watching me, watching me.. her own child, watching me as I cared and comforted my own baby, watching me hurt and suffer on the inside and knowing she could do nothing. I think of those moments and then I think of my own daughter, and how much it would kill me to see her hurt, see her cry, see her heart break.
Then I realize, that is what being a mother is. It is standing quietly, strongly and silently in the back of the room and watching your baby whether she be 25 or 40 or 8 years old and to feel your heart break because you could do nothing to sooth her heart from breaking. But to just be there when she was needed. How hard that must have been for my own mother.
To this day, I know my mom stands quietly at my side, only waiting for me to ask and she would do anything. And as an adult I find the comfort of just lying on my moms bed with my head in her lap and just cry, cry uncontrollably as if I was 8 years old again. Because in our moms arms we always feel the safest, that her hand stroking our hair was we sob somehow just makes it all seem like it's going to be okay! For those moments I thank my mom!!
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2 comments:
I would venture to say you are a better mother today than you were before. You know loss better than anyone, therefore you love your kids harder, and with more passion than anyone. You are tough when you need to be, because you want them to be strong and able to handle all that life throws at them. Just like you have done. They are very lucky kids to have you as their Mommy.
I'm sure they would not always agree with you on that one! Much love to you girl!
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