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It's New Year's Eve.  The past few years this day has been one of those days where I have reflected back on the past year and think where I'm going to go from here.  This year... Well, to be honest, I don't want to think about this year.

This year has been a roller coaster of epic proportions.   I have nearly a dozen blog entries and they're all stuck in draft mode, unfinished and unpublished. 

On September 16, 2019, I lost my Mom.  I wasn't there.  I couldn't bring myself to get on a plane and be there.  I didn't want to see her die.  I couldn't see her die.  My cousins were there for her in the end.  I got the call in the parking lot of the grocery store.  Casey, my wonderful husband, got me out of the house to go get food because all I had been doing for four days (her doctor suspected a stroke) was pacing.  I would walk back and forth, stare at the walls, the floor.  I didn't know what I was doing and I didn't know what to do with myself.  I couldn't think.  I was waiting for that phone call... It finally came and I was broken.  I am still broken.

I can honestly say that until my Mother passed I did not understand grief. I didn't understand how any emotion could completely shut you down.  Grief can hold you hostage.  It can be the smallest thing that will allow it to creep in and shut you down.   Random things will send me into a spiral of tears. 

I have felt ashamed of those tears.  I feel like I have to hide them from my family, from friends, from the world.  I feel like I have to stand tall, swallowing the knot in the back of my throat; God forbid I let anyone see the sadness in my eyes or the tears staining my face.  Then, here comes Casey. He wraps his arms around me and I'm safe.  I'm home.  He tells me it's okay to cry.

I stopped in the middle of the post.  Casey came out of our room and was just being silly.  I shooed him away; he was just trying to get me to smile.  He casually asked me what I was doing and I just lost it.  He instantly dropped down and held me for several minutes, letting me just getting everything out.  When I started to calm down, I told him "I'm tired of feeling so sad about this."  He looks at me and simply says "You're sad because you had a good Mom."  He's completely right.  Every time I cry and am missing my Mom it's because I want to share something with her or it's because I am remembering something that we've shared.  I am sad because I will never be able to share things with her again.  I want to be this whole believing in an afterlife, we'll be reunited in the end, there's something bigger out there...

What seems like a lifetime ago, Casey introduced me to Neil Gaiman's graphic novel, "Death: The High Cost of Living."  It was an amazing read when I first read it at the age of 18.  I absolutely loved it.  I was amazed by it.  I need to pick it up again.  The TL;DR version of the story is that Death is human for one day.  She tries to get everything she can.  And she's so joyful about it.  To me, it's beautiful. I understand it so much more than I did at the age of 18.   What I said about not being able to share things with my Mom ever again?  It's true.  I can't share it with her, but I can share it with everyone else.

So, that's what I'm going to try and do this year.  I'm going to share everything that I feel like sharing.  Whether it's just a picture, or a story, whatever... Rainbows, rainstorms, if I'm sad, if I'm happy, angry, loopy, sleepy.  I will tell MY story.  My Mom shared her story with me.  I want to share my story with you.  I'm going to tell the good, the bad and the ugly.  No holds bar.  I hope you stick around to see it...