That time when my mom died...

Alexa play Sir Mix-A-Lot, Baby Got Back.... take a moment and enjoy it...

To some this may come across as completely insensitive.... to others that were around for the death of their parent, you'll feel where I'm coming from!

I think there's a part of me that finds comfort in being almost too comfortable with the death of my mom. There's something about having that energy around it that feels like I'm more connected to her. She was weird af too, I can almost hear her voice saying my name in that tone where she is taken aback but acknowledges that we're two peas in a pod and totally fucked up together. {I know because I often feel this way about my eleven year old}

So... what's with the song.... In one of the last few days of my mother being on hospice at home she had a moment of clarity where she just sat up and started singing the lyrics to Baby Got Back. I swear that woman had to keep us all on our toes. If I do recall there was also something about that song that connected back to her and her friends from a few months before.

I sit in a frozen state. At almost 12 years after her passing and I don't forget that she's gone, reach for the phone to call her or anything like that. I do have days that are hard and wish that I could bitch to her about it all. But that's part of it. You never realize how lonely it is until the only person in your corner is gone.

When someone you love dies especially from cancer it's a weird hurry up and wait period. I was never in a rush for her to actually be gone, but it was a real struggle to watch her suffer. You put what you can on hold and slow down to savor the last moments, but it's hard to take in any good when they're no longer themselves. I remember being there for her last breath... and it felt like darkness consumed me while organs exploded.. there was ringing in my ears, a bit of chaos with my family around me but somehow a silence because she was gone. I have had heartache in my life but nothing tops that day. As I have grown I have done my best to find ways to cope...

I have a mini ern with her ashes in it... always makes me think of my mom's best friend Gail.. she said she would definitely be cremated when she died so everyone can get a piece of her ash.... damn that's the energy I want when I go out.

Hey Alexa play Bitch by Meredith Brooks...

A way to help me cope with the loss of the physical aspect of my mom is to take her ern with me places. Yeah, I do that. She gets tossed in my purse and away we go. I'll sit her out in the sun with me, I'll talk to her over coffee. I know I can just speak to her spirit wherever and whenever but something about having the last physical part of her with me really helps. I did make a mini vial necklace with her ashes that I keep on a cord with a diamond cross necklace she gave me. It's the same necklace she wore for her wake actually. Which leads me to an interesting story... (let's back up a little before the wake to get the full effect)

My mom always had short hair as long as I remember, but when I decided to go to hair school she was on board with growing it out so I can use her as my model. Of course, this would be that time in her life where she was diagnosed with cancer and started losing all the beautiful hair that I had been highlighting. She ended up shaving her head early on in the process of chemo and radiation. When it started to grow back in it was coming with a vengeance. We joked when she was in the nursing home that she had the whole Heat Miser vibe from The Year Without a Santa Claus... if you were there during that time you know what I mean.

So fast forward a few short weeks and it's time for me to get her set up for the wake... her outfit, the pictures the funeral home needs to help with her makeup and hair, the music, those were all on me... at 19. Not to mention I was her medical POA throughout hospice, but that's life (and death). I gave them one of the photos from before she had let her hair grow and hoped for the best, especially since her hair texture was completely different now.

Let me tell you the sheer panic I had when I walked up to her casket maybe a half hour before the wake was supposed to start and saw her hair. Oh hell no, I'm surprised she wasn't rolling over herself because man it was rough. So I did what any probably mentally unstable cosmetologist in training would do and high tailed it home to grab my tools. The only thing that topped that initial panic was the overwhelming fear of accidentally burning her forehead or lighting the whole casket up. I have been in the bowels of a funeral home before with a body on the table, my father's parents died the two previous years before my mom so I was no stranger to dead bodies, but how flamable is embalming fluid? (all the thoughts racing through my head in that moment) I did what I could considering the last minute circumstances and she forgives me for getting her into that mess. (possibly pay back for some of the outrageous things she put me in as a child)

I have many regrets about the relationship I had with my mother, but I also forgive myself because that is life and hindsight is always 2020. I do wish that technology would have been different the year that she passed so I had more digital photos and videos to show my kids and hear her voice again. I swear I see her rolling down my passenger window to flick her cigarette outside every once and a while when I'm driving along.

Alexa play When I Look to the Sky by Train...

Love you mom