Nine Years

Nine years. Nine years is a long time...Then why do I still find this day so hard? Maybe its that this is the first time as a ture orphan or that my taxes this year involve her pension. Even when I try to forget, I simply can't. My mom died on this day and nobody was there. She was supposed to live several more months, had rallied just days before and Kelli and I gone home, our families needed us. We were home just four days, when mom died.

Her death wasn't a surprise, but the way she died was. A fall, in the bathroom. Ten feet from the nurses station. Critical head/facial injuries. She was gone by the time the nurses found her....

Our world shattered. The years prior to her death, daunting and difficult. Her mind tormented by mental illness, her body losing its battle with COPD. We had lost our mother long before her death.

I had always assumed her death would bring instant peace. It brought a torment, I simply couldn't have prepared for. Guilt, I wasn't there. I even hated her.Grief, why was her life, my life so hard. Heartache, why couldn't I have a normal mother, I figured I wasn't worthy of that kind of love . Anger, the anger was all consuming, I hated how she had treated me. The hurt that continued. There would be no answers or resolutions in this life time. I honestly thought I could never put the pieces together again.

Words did not heal me. The peace I feel now surrounding her death came in pieces, fragments at time and it is only with nine years of perspective that I can see and feel that peace. But anniversary dates still bring a few tears, and probably always will.

I saw on Facebook a few weeks ago, a missionary who served for a while in our ward a couple of years, post...."happy graduation day, mom...I love you." Her mom had died a dozen years before, unexpectedly, some would say tragically. She was still a young girl. But instead of a post filled heartbreak, hers was filled with hope and peace, honouring the day her mom went home to heaven.

Graduation day, I had never thought of it with that perspective before....

Nine years ago today, moms battle was over, she was finally given reprieve from her demons and torment. Her body and mind at peace. A peace I now understand would have never come on this earth. Her graduation day.

There is much peace in that and I will just accept that today might always be a sad one and that's okay.

Nine years is a long time but sometimes it takes even longer to say goodbye.