Celebrating Mom's 68th birthday at the Cabarrus Creamery! Today would have been my Mom's 69th birthday. My Mom LOVED to celebrate birthdays. She never missed an opportunity to send a birthday card to a friend. She made cakes and cooked special meals. When I was in college, she made the trip up I-85 every year and introduced my Duke friends to the southern staple Red Velvet Cake before it became a couture cupcake. For most of my life, I remember that she took her birthday off from work so she could do something special. Birthdays were meant to be celebrated. I can guarantee that if cancer would not have invaded our life two years ago, we would already be planning some type of spectacular trip or event for her 70th.
But cancer did come. An ugly, aggressive ovarian cancer that took my Mom to heaven 16 months after her diagnosis. It took her on August 28th, three days before my September 1st birthday. Even though I don't really remember it because I was still in the early stages of grief, I've already had my first birthday on this earth without my Mama. My wonderful friend Jennifer Plym, who lost her Mom weeks before I lost mine, wrote an amazing blog on Mother's Day about all the firsts that were happening in her life that her Mom is missing. I still cry when I read it because it's my story too. But, thanks to the joys of TimeHop and other memory apps, I've realized that there is also the pain of experiencing the first anniversary of the last events.
And that was May for me. May is a month that will always be hard. This year I got to "celebrate" the 2nd anniversary of my Mom's cancer diagnosis, my first Mother's Day without her and the first anniversary of the cancer relapse. That means from now until August 28th, I'm "celebrating" lasts. My Mom's last birthday celebration at Cabarrus Creamery, the last time she saw one of her granddaughters perform in a play or a talent show, the last time she visited my house . . . .the list goes on and on.
Lasts are terrifying. They mean the end, finished, over, no more second chances. It's totally cliché, but realizing you are at the anniversary of a "last event" really makes you stop and think what would you have done differently. I've always said Mom and I were so lucky. We knew that we were experiencing the last of each thing and I think we did it awesomely. But now she's gone and in this most perfect Heavenly place and I'm left here to grieve the fact that there will be no more firsts.
Life has shifted in an unchangeable way since my Mom died. Everything is different. It's so hard to pinpoint. It's not like we were besties who talked on the phone everyday like some of my friends. My Mom and I struggled with our relationship up until the end. I felt judged, she felt neglected. It was so far from perfect. But now she is everywhere. In the yellow flowers Cailin picks on our walk to school and robins that literally live on the fence outside our den window or follow us as we walk to school. It's her voice urging me to find the time to join the women at Dilworth Church and find Hope in the passages of Jeremiah.
My mother always encouraged me to write and was disappointed when I walked away from a journalism career. I never understood why my writing was so important to her until I gave her a Caringbridge Page to document her cancer journey. Then I saw it - my Mother's gift. Her ability to engage an audience and cultivate a readership. Her honesty in the details and her overarching faith. Her ability to connect with words. And then I saw our connection. One I hadn't seen before. And it's nudged and pushed and bugged at me until I'm here. Writing my first blog post on my Mom's birthday. Happy birthday, Mom. You win. I will write.
Love & Yellow Pixie Dust,
April
But cancer did come. An ugly, aggressive ovarian cancer that took my Mom to heaven 16 months after her diagnosis. It took her on August 28th, three days before my September 1st birthday. Even though I don't really remember it because I was still in the early stages of grief, I've already had my first birthday on this earth without my Mama. My wonderful friend Jennifer Plym, who lost her Mom weeks before I lost mine, wrote an amazing blog on Mother's Day about all the firsts that were happening in her life that her Mom is missing. I still cry when I read it because it's my story too. But, thanks to the joys of TimeHop and other memory apps, I've realized that there is also the pain of experiencing the first anniversary of the last events.
And that was May for me. May is a month that will always be hard. This year I got to "celebrate" the 2nd anniversary of my Mom's cancer diagnosis, my first Mother's Day without her and the first anniversary of the cancer relapse. That means from now until August 28th, I'm "celebrating" lasts. My Mom's last birthday celebration at Cabarrus Creamery, the last time she saw one of her granddaughters perform in a play or a talent show, the last time she visited my house . . . .the list goes on and on.
Lasts are terrifying. They mean the end, finished, over, no more second chances. It's totally cliché, but realizing you are at the anniversary of a "last event" really makes you stop and think what would you have done differently. I've always said Mom and I were so lucky. We knew that we were experiencing the last of each thing and I think we did it awesomely. But now she's gone and in this most perfect Heavenly place and I'm left here to grieve the fact that there will be no more firsts.
Life has shifted in an unchangeable way since my Mom died. Everything is different. It's so hard to pinpoint. It's not like we were besties who talked on the phone everyday like some of my friends. My Mom and I struggled with our relationship up until the end. I felt judged, she felt neglected. It was so far from perfect. But now she is everywhere. In the yellow flowers Cailin picks on our walk to school and robins that literally live on the fence outside our den window or follow us as we walk to school. It's her voice urging me to find the time to join the women at Dilworth Church and find Hope in the passages of Jeremiah.
My mother always encouraged me to write and was disappointed when I walked away from a journalism career. I never understood why my writing was so important to her until I gave her a Caringbridge Page to document her cancer journey. Then I saw it - my Mother's gift. Her ability to engage an audience and cultivate a readership. Her honesty in the details and her overarching faith. Her ability to connect with words. And then I saw our connection. One I hadn't seen before. And it's nudged and pushed and bugged at me until I'm here. Writing my first blog post on my Mom's birthday. Happy birthday, Mom. You win. I will write.
Love & Yellow Pixie Dust,
April
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