That dream was scary...

I have never had a dream like that before in my life...
We were gathered around the Thanksgiving table and I remember we were at the house in MN. All of the kids were there and we were getting ready to bow our heads and say grace. I hear us saying grace and then I hear Steve say Mom's name and I just hunch over and let out the most guttural scream and wail I have ever given. I have never experienced something like that before in my life. I woke myself up from that wail and was so shaken that I could not get back to sleep.

I dread the holidays...the absence will be palpable...

Mom's toolbox...

One of my dear friends told me that there would be a strong feeling of loss and peace and sadness...and perhaps not a lot of anger at the passing of my mom....and I think what I am most sad about is the abyss that is now left with her departure. She was a HUGE part of my life and filled me with such blessed lessons and tools to move my way through this journey. She nurtured me. She supported me and now that has been ripped away...I say too quickly...

My cousin is one of my dearest confidantes in my life  and she told me on a long conversation the other day that my Mom left me her toolbox she used in her own life. She taught me how to use the tools she used and left them for me to use after she went on. I was struck by this profound statement. .

My mom really did give me the tools on which I will be successful in my life going forward. Her hammer of faith and strength. Her pliers of pride in a job well done. Her screwdriver of devotion and drive. Her sandpaper to buffer the hard edges and leave softness.

It was the perfect thing to say and I have been pondering this for quite some time. Those close to us really do leave us the tools for life's roller-coaster. Whether they intend to or not. Some do a better job than others. Some  use those tools as a hard knocks sort of mentality. I think we need to strive to make ourselves as well as the folks around us better human beings just by the example they lead.  And I have so MANY shining examples from which to follow.

I am in O'Hare airport heading back to Minnesota to begin the process of helping to go through her personal belongings. There are so many things she has already given me in this life that I will be forever grateful for. After a hectic and crazy couple of weeks back in school, hosting our speech tournament at school this weekend, a friend asked if I was ready to begin this process. I said that I have pushed myself so hard to ensure a smooth tournament run that I really wasn't sure. Are we ever fully equipped and prepared for something like this.

She went on to say that I would feel her everywhere and that it would be overwhelming. I will go with the flow and just keep breathing and trying to make her proud. It's all I can do. Live my life going forward with the tools she gave me and for those I will eternally be grateful.

Where I am today...

As I slowly settle into the harsh reality of absence, I know that these stages of grief are different for every one. I hear what folks say about it and am so grateful for every friend and family member who has reached out to say hello, to offer their condolences,  to listen to my processing, and to offer love and support in every form it has come in. Our family could not have made it this far without all of the love and support.l we have felt from each of you. We are so grateful and love each of you so much.

One of the biggest things I find that I am working my way through, on my end of the grief train, is that I am not experiencing anger at this point and time. It is a little jarring as I expected this part but  I think my Mom set the tone throughout this entire experience. This helps to buffer it a bit I think.  Her positive outlook, her " go get it " tone she set, the opportunities we had together to share our lives and our final months together...how she interacted with those around her, those moments of " I am going to fight this with every fiber of my being to the very end" will always stay with me.

Am I angry? Not really. She fought the courageous fight. She lived the full life. She led by the strongest example and she wouldn't want us to dwell in anger. There are other things that anger me that just plain strike me as odd... But they things and iasues that are out of my control and so it becomes a non-issue.

Am I sad? ABSOLUTELY. 100 PERCENT SAD. I am so sad that she will not be here to share any more of our life experiences together. I am sad that she is no longer here to be able to give each of us her special hugs. Those phone calls...

I do find myself able to make it through the day and then getting home and just feel utter exhaustion. Right now i am putting on my best smile, my best foot forward, my best I can muster and go from there. I know she would want me to do this...and I need to do this...to push forward... and I find I am better than where I was three weeks ago and I know that it will continue to move forward from here.

All I have to do is get through one week more here in AR then I will head back up north to help Steve go through her belongings. I know that this will also be rough. There will be many tears. There will be lots of memories flooding back. Just seeing the blue dress hanging in the closet...the one she wore at our wedding and the one from the picture at the memorial service brought tears to my eyes...just seeing it hanging there was rough...But family and friends share this with us. I know that this is all part of a awful process and a path I have never had to go down before.

My prayer is that Mom guides me through it all...

"Are we really here?"

The grief process is so cut throat and unbending and yet it is also very confusing and jarring and cloudy and turbulent. For many who know me, I find myself currently trying to label and analyze where exactly I am or should be on the grief roller-coaster. I am not sure what this grief journey should appear to be like. I am concerned that I am grieving correctly? The reads odd...but am kinda being honest...Do I feel when the the next phase of grief comes in...Am I doing everything I am supposed to be doing because I sure as hell don't want to come back to this once I have moved forward.

Thank God I have Justin, family, and friends reaching out to just keep me on course. There are times when I just sit there and feel completely cloudy and unfocused. There are moments where I feel so much better. I catch myself and Justin is able to be my rock. He is my voice of reason. It's in those questioning moments that he tells me it is okay. Stop psychoanalyzing what you THINK you should be doing or questioning where you should be and just continue to roll with it...Reminding myself to just keep breathing and then I laugh. There were moments back in April when I would be with Mom and I just had to calmly remind her to breathe. Getting her to focus on just breathing and getting her oxygen levels back up where they needed to be. And I calm. And I cry. And I smile. And it is okay.

I naively would think when I was little and experienced the death of my first grandparent and would think...this is horrible... I watched both of my parents go through this horrific experience and kept thinking about the inevitable and thought, "Surely this will not be on my radar until MUCH later. MUCH MUCH later. " Back in April, when we had the first scare down in Florida, Justin and I had a lengthy 16 hour drive down and I just kept thinking, "Are we really here? Is this really happening? How could life have flown by this quickly to this particular moment? Are we really here this quickly?"

Thankfully Mom rebounded and we were able to have some very important conversations about her wishes, her wants, her thoughts on what she wanted in regards to her Celebration Memorial. Those moments were so valuable and so life changing for me. It became about being brave and grown up and trying very hard to navigate my way through this very adult conversation because it was extremely important to me that her wishes be carried out...But that little phrase continued to chip away in the back of my mind...Are we really here at this moment?

The final weeks were very back and forth. I spoke more with Steve than I did with Mom. But I was always grateful when he would put me on speaker phone to just say GOOD Morning...or I love you...and she would always respond back with I love you too, Son. I can hear her voice right before going to bed...and I catch myself thinking once again "Are we really here at this moment? Am I really experiencing this? Where did that time go?"

The LONG DRIVE up to Fargo this phrase played over and over in my mind...
Would I be able to be brave enough when I finally saw her there in the hospital bed? Would she be able to hear me?  Feel my presence? When I finally got there and was able to get close to her, the phrase was screaming in my head...and I knew that I needed to tell force everything out of my head and just tell her everything that I felt was important in that very moment. She had hung on and waited for me to get there and it was important that she know that I loved her very much, that we had shared such a HUGE adventure together, and that she had folks waiting for her to usher over to her next adventure. I kept whispering to her, "Its okay to go, Momma. Its ok." And she slipped away...

And through the tears, I felt her slip away. I watched her breathing stop and I could not let go. I continued to stroke her hair. I continued to massage her shoulder. I continued to think ,"It's OK" as if her presence was still in the room. I stayed after everyone left and just held on to her arm and just kept thinking, "Holy shit, my greatest fears have all just come true. I have lost a parent and she is right here with me and these are the final moments." I just cried and cried and cried.

I am weeks out and am still thinking, " Did this all really happen?" I just have this overwhelming urge to pick up the phone and call her to tell her about my day. The usual daily event sharing. To hear her voice. To hear I love you, Son. And then I can go about my day.

And then the truth smacks me and I fell the phrase all over again...

Surely this will pass...
Or get better...
Or not but different...

I hope so. Cause this sucks...

Goodbye just seems so hard...

I do have to say that the first week back after going through all of the plans and preparations to celebrate my Mom's life has been rough. It is like a numbness and darkness that follows me. There were days that were far better than others. But I push my way through as I know that that is what she would expect and would want me to do.

I look back on her celebration with great pride. It was beautiful and perfect and she would have loved every minute, have been so proud and extremely grateful. It was signature Bonnie...with lots of photos, Santas, travel memorabilia, her favorite music, and Bible verses. The pastor's words rang so true through all of my tears. She ended each email with "Cheers" and his words strongly focused on her fight and her drive and her passion to be a positive influence on everyone she met. Even through her final fight with cancer, she wanted to be a strong source of inspiration. I will speak more and more as I begin the healing process...this has truthfully been the roughest thing/ pain I have ever had to endure. The schedule helps but does not alleviate the darkness and sadness.

I was not able to get up and speak at her memorial service but wanted to share with each of you the letter I wrote to share with her. It reads:

"Dear Mom,

As I sit here trying to pull my thoughts together and form the words I will say to you here at this very moment, I have nothing but unending gratitude in my heart. You have done nothing but love me from our very first day together. From that moment when my foot swept across your belly and shut your desk drawer for you at work, you knew that this would be a special, one-of-a-kind relationship. And it truly has been. What an adventure we have shared!!

I can honestly say that you are one of my very best friends and confidantes and my heart breaks to know that we are finally at the point where we have to part ways. So many years ago, I kept thinking how sad it was to see friends or family losing their parents and naively kept thinking, this surely won’t be us for quite some time. This surely won’t be a quick occurrence and yet here we are…and it flew by so quickly.

I am grateful to you for so many things…There are so many things I will carry with me always…

Always love with your whole heart. Love life. Love your fellow man. Show unconditional love and treat everyone you meet with respect.

Live life bravely. Mom, you are the shining example of this even to the very end. You fought so bravely, so fully and you did it with such positivity in your heart and on your face. You truly are a shining example to us all on how to fight and be courageous. You are my hero and I will never forget these final weeks.

You have loved me, supported me, believed in me even when I didn’t always believe in myself,  was a strong shoulder to lean on, been one of my biggest cheerleaders, and you lifted me up when I wasn’t feeling quite strong enough. Somehow you found the strength for me. You supported my dreams and you loved my friends and treated them as part of the family. You loved my husband and never once made us feel inferior, unloved, or unwanted. We are so grateful to you and Steve for making us feel so special, so loved, and so cared for.

And you always treated me with the same love and respect. You never once made me feel insignificant or immature or minimal. You lifted me up and taught me how to fly on my own… always just a phone call away to bounce ideas off of and that will have to change now and that’s what makes me so sad.

I will always remember our travels and adventures together.

And it truly has been an amazing journey, supporting each other through life’s hurdles. I will never forget the fact that we could tell each other absolutely anything.  You were always there guiding me through struggles, even though you may not have felt like it. I hope I can be half the father to my own kids that you were to me as my mother. Thank you for setting the bar so high and for being the shining example…

To coin your phrase, “I love you to the moon and back” and I always will. You will always be beautiful. I will always see you smiling at me with that twinkle in those blue eyes. You will always be the way you were at Justin’s and my wedding…vibrant, exuberant, and will never forget those hugs.

I will also remember our time atop those buttes in Medora so long ago…Looking out over the horizon…dreaming of the possibilities, looking ahead and the fact that we did that together, even though being afraid of heights. We did that together and that was our moment to realize our bond and dream of where we would go on from there.

Fly free, sweet Momma. 

I know you are free from pain. 

I know that you, Dougie, Donnie, and Grandpa are there together reconnecting. Give them all hugs from me.

You will always be in my heart. 

Thank you for waiting for me on our final night together.

 I will hold those final moments in my heart forever. 

I love you so much and will miss you terribly.

Your son~

Brandon"

Thoughtful moment...not so sure...

I share this as it has been on my mind here recently. For those of you out there who watch the Netflix series, "Grace and Frankie" season two had this very story line in there. It was a very powerful couple of episodes and it really hit me hard and got me thinking. I have struggled with this topic because I can see both sides to this issue. 

The basis of the above story is the woman struggled with a debilitating disease in which her doctors had told her the end was near. She decided to throw a party for 30 of her closest friends and family members, all of whom knew the final outcome of this final party together. After the party was over, the woman's doctor administered the death-giving drugs and she stopped the life journey.

On one side...In the end, it is assisted suicide, and I do think that killing oneself is kind of wrong at a core level...the church frowns upon this. The Bible strongly suggests a very different outcome. But we all know, as you are my readers, that I have struggled with the Bible's teachings for most of my life... So why should this subject be any different?

The other side goes more towards the idea of taking control of a situation you know will have the very same outcome. In the end, you are going to die and most times it is drawn out, very painful process at times, and a roller-coaster for you and those around you. 

I think the end can be very beautiful, peaceful, and a celebration. That is how I would want to go out and to be remembered by. 

I think the more I have thought about this topic over the years, the more I feel we cannot live each other's lives and cannot dictate the choices others make. It is their lives to lead and their lives to live as fully and beautifully as they can. We are here to support each other on our own ride and shouldn't tell each other how to live it.

Perhaps this is just one of my childhood upbringings rearing its ugly head and I should look deeper. Am I being stupidly conservative in my thought process to think that this is wrong on some levels? 

Love liberates!

Oh this is such a beautiful story.
I hope and pray that this is what we can all experience...that you can feel liberated by love.

Her story rings true.
Rings so true...

If you need permission to go, give it.

It is ok to give that permission to say I love you.
It is ok to say I love you even though we are different.
It is ok to say I love you for who you are as a person.
I love you with all my heart.
I love you even though you hurt me,
It is ok to say, go if now is the time. In those final moments here on this earth, it is okay to say I love you and go if you need to.

What a beautiful legacy this amazing woman left us all,,,
such powerful thoughts
.
Such powerful stories.
Such powerful words.
Such powerful love.