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| Me and Mom - Long Lake, Traverse City, July 1967 |
1700 days have passed since you died, Mom.
And now that I have abandoned daily HEY MOM posts and have not even kept up a weekly schedule, this is my first HEY MOM in 40 days since my birthday, January 19th, 2020.
1700 days later, and grief is just a fact of life. It's not a crushingly painful thing. There's acceptance of your death, Mom. I feel you a bit less in the corners of my life, though I still feel you here. I know your gone because I have been living with this state of things for almost five years. It still seems wrong when I think about it. I still wonder what it would be like if you were still with us or if you had avoided the meningitis 20 years ago and had been able to lead a relatively normal life. I still miss you, and this too is simply a fact of life.
In recognition of the number, here's a reprint that matters to me.
originally (and linked):
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #969 - Dreams part ten and Throwback Thursday for March FIRST, 2018
Hi Mom, Two dreams in two nights prompts me to post this entry, which also includes dreams as yet unposted from last year.
Not much else that I am going to take the time to report for Throwback Thursday other than I started two short stories yesterday, based on the first dream.
Also, this morning, sharing with Liesel that the Indigo Girls are coming to Portland this summer got me crying because of "Wood Song," so may tale regarding that is re-posted at the end.
I love you, Mom.
A surge of intensity in missing you today especially.
1802.28
For the first time, I dreamed that you died and Dad told me on the phone that you had died, Mom. It was a weird thing. I don't remember all the details, but something had you in its power, like magic, and was making you spin slowly, counter-clockwise. I knew this and could see this even though I was not there in the room with you. It was like I was watching it on a video feed on a monitor. Then Dad called and told me there was no time for me to get there. "Your mother died. I am sorry you're not here."
I am not sure why my brain is trying to process your death now, process again, or more, so long after you died. Maybe my contemplation of ending the Hey Mom blog series at entry 1000 is stirring up feelings, misgivings, confrontations with unresolved grief. I don't know.
1803.01
Second night in a row that you were in my dreams, Mom. It part I may have dreamed about you because I started writing a short story about last night's dream (see above). In this dream, you are alive. There was one scene in which we were eating with some work colleagues of yours who had ordered you some burrito bowl type thing to your special specifications. I was visiting you, and you had been working with a large group of people I didn't know on some project or business. It was clear that they liked you in the way they teased you. Later in the dream, you were showing me your truck of many shoes, some kind of business that you were running. You spoke of having finished an MBA degree after I left Michigan, and you had some thriving mobile business that sold shoes, rented shoes, repaired or retrofitted shoes, I am not sure. You were happy, youthful, and full of vigor. You were also not wheelchair-bound, able to talk, and not ill. I am sure that some part of this dream will find it's way into my story.
1707.25
The most memorable element of this dream is that you were fitted with glasses, Mom, that made one eye look huge, and so you almost looked like a cyclops because the eye was so magnified. I had this fear that if you continued to live, you would go blind, which would be horrible for you as one of your main activities and pleasures in your last years of life was watching TV and movies. But then, in the dream, I knew you were already dead, and so I knew we avoided that horrible outcome.
Then, in this other part of the dream, you and this other woman helping you, maybe a therapist, took my toaster. I needed my toaster as I wanted some toast, so I was trying to get it back from you when I discovered that all the screens of the screened in porch (suddenly we're at the Hazelwood house) had been torn away by someone who also hammered at low windows to the basement in the porch floor (which were not part of the Hazelwood porch, but hey. it's a dream). I was really pissed because we have the house for sale and now there's another thing to fix.
1705.30
I had that dream again in which I am sort of on the team of the Detroit Pistons and sort of not. Some of the players were trying to teach me how to shoot with a tennis ball. Apparently, if I can sink baskets with a tennis ball, then I can do it with a basketball if I adjust for weight in hand and in flight. I was hitting lots of baskets with the tennis ball. Coach, Larry Brown, told me he was going to put me in and my job would be to hit three point shots. It was half time, and I would be going in some time in the second half. For some odd reason, Rasheed Wallace was on the other team, even though he had been teaching me to shoot with the tennis ball, but now, he would guard me. I had an image in my mind of you, Mom, with Dad at home ready to watch me, but my call would not go through. And then the coach called me to the floor, and the dream ended.
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INDIGO GIRLS CONCERT MOMENT FROM HEY MOM #263
March 26, 2016
HIGHLIGHT: So here's my highlight of the show. I told my friend Chris that there are certain songs that might make me cry if they were to play them, one such song is "The Wood Song" from the 1994 album Swamp Ophelia. I had already written about this song in my seven songs in seven days feature (requested by Glenn Codere): Hey Mom #114 - Seven Songs - "Wood Song."
So, the Indigo Girls played "The Wood Song" and because the crowd was well behaved and mostly older, once the applause died off after the song there's a silent lull, into which I said, in a loud voice, "that song has meant so much to me." Since I was only about twenty feet away in the second row, they heard me and thanked me and tried to get a look at me through the lights.
I am so happy that I was able to share that comment with Amy Ray and Emily Saliers, but especially Emily Saliers who wrote the song.
I was so thrilled to be able to share my comment and be heard by these two artists who I respect so much. Given how much I love music, this comment is the one thing I wish to say to my favorite artists. When we love music, we let the music into our lives, and it becomes part of our lives. The music becomes a companion. It's a shoulder to cry on in tough times. It's a pep talk, a reminder to have courage and fortitude. It's a reminder that we are loved, that there is love, that there are good times and bad times. The music becomes a good friend.
As I wrote back in Hey Mom #114 - Seven Songs - "Wood Song", this song originally meant certain things to me, which evolved as years passed and as other events in my life caused me to turn to this song for support. It really helped me during the weeks as my mother lay dying and then for the weeks just after her death. Now, every time I listen to it, I am re-invigorated with courage and strength.
"love weighs the hull down with its weight..."
and
"what it takes to cross the great divide seems more than all the courage i can muster up inside but we get to have some answers when we reach the other side the prize is always worth the rocky ride..."
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| This is how close we sat! second row - Orchestra Pit |
"The Wood Song" - The Indigo Girls
ORIGINAL
- Days ago = 971 days ago
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1803.01 - 10:10
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Reflect and connect.
Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you, Mom.
I miss you so very much, Mom.
Talk to you soon, Mom.
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- Days ago = 1700 days ago
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2002.28 - 10:10
NEW (written 1708.27 and 1907.04) NOTE on time: I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of your death, Mom, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of your death, Mom. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom. Dropped "Talk to you tomorrow, Mom" in the sign off on 1907.04. Should have done it sooner as this feature is no longer daily.
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