That is what tomorrow, 1/20/16, marks for us.
One whole year without Mom/Nana. I use the word "without" in a relative sense. I know with every piece of me that she's been right along with all of us in this past year. She's been watching. Laughing. Crying. Shaking her head at us when we're idjits.
She is proud of Eileen and the lady she's becoming, and she cracks up at Edith and her mischievous ways, no doubt being reminded of another younger sister who shall not be named.
She has marveled at John/Grampie and his new found love of Pickle-Ball. For endless days she nagged at him to lose weight to stay healthy, and now he's looking all kinds of fit and trim from chasing after that ball!
I'd like to think she's proud of Sissy and I for holding it together (well, at least as far as the general public knows). We haven't necessarily talked with our aunts and uncles as much as Janet would have liked, but we'll get there. Time helps right?
Looking back through my pictures (and y'all know I have a LOT of pictures) trying to find some to put on this post, it hits me just how much happens in a year. Maybe this year was busier than most? Are all years as busy as this one was?
Eileen made her First Reconciliation and her First Communion. I was really worried about me getting through those without Mom here, as the Catholic Faith meant so very much to Mom. I daresay Mom had front-row seats from Heaven, taking it all in.
Eileen got braces (and now has them off). We went to the beach - twice! We went to New Orleans. We rode a train and we rode a jet-ski, both big firsts. Eileen ran- and LOVES- running Cross Country. Eileen finished second grade and is more than halfway through third grade.
We had SnowPacOlypse last February, with so much ice and snow that the kids were out of school two weeks, AND one morning when Grampie woke up, the car had slid all the way down the driveway into the street. Mom did love her weather events, she'd have been ALL over that storm. She so loved to talk about the various meteorologists on a first name basis, as if she'd known them for years. "Well Todd says its gonna get really bittah cold out theyah" --- "who's TODD?" -- "from Channel 10. TODD" ...
Sissy and I both had some pretty big changes at work. Scary changes but good changes. Even with those changes and Mom not here to remind us what really matters in life, I guess we were listening all those years, because we seem to have kept what matters at the very front of our minds.
I was so nervous about the holidays, but they weren't as bad as I anticipated. We made her recipes (just as we always have), we surrounded ourselves with family and we kept busy. There were a lot of years when we weren't with her for holidays. Whether we stayed in NYC, or we'd gone up to MA to stay with Aunt Marcia, or we'd gone to Memphis. Sissy and I left home at 18, and except for a couple of summers in early college, we never lived at home, or even in the same town, as our parents. So it wasn't completely foreign to us to have a holiday without Mom with us in person.
In my mind she's up there talking to HER mom, who left this Earth when mom was not yet 19. In my mind, Janet is up there with Nana Kay making up for lost time. Talking about her kids and her grandkids, about how the South turned a tried and true New Englander into quite the Southerner, about all the amazing fun times we had as kids, and the memories she made for us. When I became a mom, and could call MY mom with questions, or needed help - Janet was there. It wasn't until I became a Mom that I understood how it must have felt for my mom to not have her mom to call. It wasn't until now, now that I have the hole in my own heart that she must have always had, that I realize how hard she worked to make memories for us, and how hard it must have been sometimes for her to make that effort.
It should come as no surprise that in these last couple of weeks I've been thinking about Mom even more than I would have been. I have come to realize that it hasn't been the events that were hard to do without her, but the non-events. So many times I started to call her or text her a funny picture only to realize she's not here. I remind myself that she knows exactly what I'm thinking or what I want to show her.
I'm ready for tomorrow to be over. For this last first to be over. To keep moving forward, making memories and keeping life in perspective.
In this past year, so many friends have supported us. Not just last January and February - but all year. Mothers day. Random days that had no special meaning. The holidays.
There is no doubt in my mind that we made it through this year because of our friends and our incredible family. I would not have made it through this year without my heart, soul and rock, also known as Bill.
We love you Mom.
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