Four Years

Four Years.  It's really kind of stunning that I have lived four years without my mom.  So much has happened in the past four years.  So much my mom hasn't shared.  And yet, I've survived.  

The past year has held immense growth for me.  I've figured out a lot about myself.  Much of it coming in the last few weeks honestly.  I've begun to figure out a lot of things that I likely would have not ever understood if my mom was still here.  

I wish I could write a long, long blog post and explain all the recent lessons.  But they are new and profound and for right now, private.  I need to process them more before sharing them...if I choose to share them at all.

Suffice it to say, four years ago, I was broken.  I had lost my mom.  This is where I was then: http://findingmymom.blogspot.com/2009/10/and-so-this-is-how-it-ends.html

Today...I am in such a different place.  I am no longer broken.  So many pieces have been put back together in ways they weren't connected before.  I understand so much more about myself.  I am a different person.  Of course, how could I not be?  I lost my mom to cancer and am losing my dad to Parkinson's.  But in losing my parents, I truly have found myself.  It has not been an easy journey.  The important journeys are never easy.  I have climbed mountains I haven't wanted to climb.  But upon reaching the top of those mountains I have been able to see clearly.  My head is above the clouds, not lost in them anymore.  

The blog I wrote when my mom was sick was called Finding My Mom in Small Goodbyes.  And I did find parts of my mom.  But what I have found in the past four years is ME.  And I am so, so grateful for the lessons I have learned.

I miss a lot of things about my mom.  I also miss things that never existed.  And there are things I don't miss as well.  I can say that now.  I wish I had figured out all this stuff before she died so we could have had a different relationship.  But it took her dying for me to figure it out.

Today will be a day of reflection as always.  But this year is different than all the rest.  I don't know how the day will go but I know that I am grateful for the person I am today.  I am grateful for the work I was forced to do because I lost my mom.  

There is power in time passed.  Time truly is a great healer.  And it marches on...