Ribbons

Dear Mamacita,

My heart just isn't in it. We are trying to clean, decorate, and set up the Christmas tree.  Of course, nothing can go that smoothly.  You know what set me off today?  I was trying to tie a beautiful new Christmas ribbon on the gorgeous glass ornament of yours that is hanging from our window, and I can't do it!  I cannot tie the damned ribbon in bow to save my life.  You had an amazing gift for tying beautiful ribbons.  It was one of the things I looked forward to most at Christmas, every present you wrapped had a beautifully tied fabric ribbon around it.  I knew one day I would miss that so much, I just didn't know that "one day" would be this year. 

It feels like my chest is caving in on itself.  My heart and chest physically hurt.  I'm fighting a migraine too.  I know my body is trying to tell me I'm doing to much and not taking care of myself emotionally, but I don't know what to do.  I want to decorate and make Christmas special for your babies, but it hurts so much mom. The anxiety is hovering right over my shoulder, waiting to ambush me when I least expect it.  I'm so unhappy mom.  Things weren't good last year at this time, but at least we had hope.  We were leading up to your transplant and had our eyes on the goal, a new lease on life for you.  Instead, something went horribly wrong and now there's nothing.  Just my first miserable Christmas season without you.  Everything is an outrage mom.  Putting up pretty things, making a shopping/gift list, planning family get togethers, it all seems wrong.  I just want to skip it all together. 

I wish I could clone myself.  Then I could give Sam and Max a happy, loving mom, and Dave a less needy wife, instead of this shell of the person I once was.  The only thing about me that is the same since before you died, is the stuff on the outside.  If I could clone myself then I could go somewhere alone and just grieve, or try to figure out how to find you in all of this pain.  I would give almost anything to see you again, if only for a little while, just to ease the incredible loneliness I feel without you.  You were my shield in this world.  The person who loved me without question or condition. 

My friend Jen titled her last post "Love Come Down".  It made me think about how God may have felt when He sent His son into our world.  He knew how it would end, with His beautiful, amazing Son on the cross, and yet, He sent Him anyways, out of His love for us.  He literally sent His love down to us in the form of a tiny baby.  When I look back on our story mom, even knowing now how it would end, I would do it again in a heartbeat.  All the tears we shared, the trials and heartaches we went through, made us who we are.  The good times and the bad made our relationship the amazing thing it was. 

I'm trying to figure out how God intends me to grow from this desert of pain.  What does He want from me?  People tell me they think I am strong.  I'm not.  The truth is I feel vulnerable, angry, sad, hurt, miserable and lost without you.  I know He gave us blessings along the way, but it doesn't change the fact that you're still gone, and I'm left here to deal with life and Adam, and Dayton without you.  I miss the way you would mediate between me and Dayton, and the way you would put him in his place and tell him to knock it off when he was being stubborn or throwing a fit.  I showed him the cross we had made for your grave site and I know he didn't like it.  I don't really care though.  It felt good to me and Dave once it was there for you.  After we placed it and stood back to look at it, all I could do was cry. 

I'm so sorry it ended this way mom.  I know if you had a choice you'd choose to be here with us.  In the last 6 months of your life you showed more strength and grace than anyone I have ever known.  What do you want me to do now mom?  How do I honor you and your life during this season?  God, I miss your voice so much.  It hasn't gotten easier to not hear your voice on the phone or feel your hug.  I'm having a hard time with it being winter.  All I can think of is that your body is buried in the cold unforgiving ground and you must be so cold.  I keep wishing I had wrapped warm blankets around you before they buried you.  I fight the urge to bring you blankets.  I know you don't really need them, I just need to be able to care for you somehow in some way. 

Do you see me mom?  Do you feel my love and my loneliness for you?  Can you send me a sign that I can recognize to show me that you still are there, still love me and haven't forgotten me wherever it is that you are?  I know I shouldn't be jealous of Heaven, since I know I'm going there too someday, and will get to spend eternity with you and all His saints, but I just want to be where you are. 

There is a song that I have dubbed as "yours".  It's titled "Amazing Grace/My Chains are Gone" by Chris Tomlin.  There's a line in it that makes me feel like you're talking directly to me.  It goes: "My chains are gone, I've been set free.."  I know that is how you must feel right now.  The chains of your illness and hurting body have been broken.  God took you home to be with Him and now you are perfect.  And for that, I am grateful and humbled by His mercy.  "And like a flood, His mercy rains, unending love, amazing grace.."

Please be with me mom.  I need you more than ever before.  Be with Sam and help him through his grief too.

All My Love,
Erika