Approaching an Anniversary

I’m sure I’m not the only one who has a love-hate relationship with Facebook. I love how I can stay “in touch” with friends and family near and far… but I hate, as I’ve seen it put somewhere, the way Facebook makes me vulnerable to comparing my “behind the scenes” life to the “highlight reels” of others. 

I love the Memories feature of Facebook – the reminders of how squishy and precious my babies were, the recollections of good times, the encouragement of seeing a hard time in the rear-view mirror, knowing that God was faithful and saw me through the difficulty. 

But the Memories feature has hit me hard the past few days, because I am six days away from the first anniversary of Mom’s death. 

The calendar flipped to August, and I knew it was ahead. And it had been a looming event that I figured I would just “deal with” when it got here. But then… Memories. 

On August 15, 2018, I posted on my page asking for prayers. The tl; dr version: following Meet the Teacher night, my autistic son was so distraught, and because he couldn’t tell us why – both because he is not conversational and because his tics were so overwhelming that he could barely communicate responses to basic yes/no questions. I took him to the ER. There, we found out he was extraordinarily constipated. I closed with this: “it is absolutely heartbreaking seeing autism and anxiety tighten their grip on this boy of ours. We feel powerless. Pray that we might have some clarity on how to help him, and pray for his teachers and therapists that they have what they need to support him.” 

Seventy-six of my wonderful friends and family commented on the post. Yesterday morning, I scrolled through them to remember their kindness, and one stopped me in my tracks: 

It took my breath away. 

It didn’t take long for the thoughts to overwhelm me. 

One: I had no idea. No idea that this was, in all likelihood, the last time she would comment on one of my Facebook posts. No idea that, a day later, she would be in Intensive Care at the same hospital I took Luke to. That four days later, she would be intubated. That two days after that, she would be gone. 

Two: That I couldn’t be completely sure, but I think this was what she hated about cancer more than anything⏤that she couldn’t help me with my babies the way she wanted to. That cancer and chemo ravaged her body to the point all that she could offer was moral support… 

…moral support that I would give almost anything to have now. 

“And her mama cannot be of help.” 

Three: That even though I am 41 years old… I want my mama.

But she cannot be of help.

More often than not, I am strong. I know all the things that I’m supposed to say⏤the things that are also true. She is restored and whole in Heaven. She is with Jesus. I will see her again. 

But sometimes, as will be the case this week as the first anniversary approaches, I will ache. I will fall apart. I will shed tears – the kind that are so hard I can’t stand up straight, sobs that are overwhelmingly powerful yet without sound. I will look back to this time a year ago and live it over again as if for the first time. 

I will take my kids to school tomorrow and relive the first day of school last year. I will go to the Boo Hoo-Yahoo Breakfast and remember how last year, I left the school library to go to the ICU. 

I will see pictures from my babies’ first day of school, and I’ll remember how I texted them to her but didn’t get the long replies I would have were she not so sick. That’s really how I should have known the end was near. No one loves your babies like your mama loves your babies. “They’re my baby’s babies,” she would often say. But last year she didn’t have the strength to muster her usual effusive love, praise, and pride in my kids. 

Midweek, I’ll remember having the kids make a video for Honey that I could show her to help her feel better. But she couldn’t watch the video. She could hear it. Her arms shook, so the monitors beeped. She couldn’t speak on account of the breathing tube, but I know in my soul, she was fighting, aching even, to see. She wanted to see my babies. Her baby’s babies. 

And when I pick up my kids at the end of this first week of school, I’ll remember this time a year ago, that I would soon be telling them their Honey had gone to heaven. 

I’ll make it through this first anniversary. The first week of school is full of distractions.

But it’s going to break my heart. 

And I think what makes me saddest is that once this first anniversary is done, we will enter the season of seconds… and thirds… plurals.

Thanksgivings without Mom.

Christmases without Mom.

Mother’s Days without Mom.

Birthdays without Mom.

That will remain our new normal. It won’t get easy, I’m told. It’ll get easier, but never easy. 

But as they say: first things first. To be honest, I have no idea how I’m going to balance functioning normally through the hustle-and-bustle of a new school year with… grieving. It’s time to finally find that out. Time to piece things back together, bit by bit, after a loss that’s simultaneously 365 days old and still painfully and palpably fresh.

I guess it will happen by realizing that while my mama may not be of help here, she is present. She’s present in memories. In pictures. In Kate’s sassy personality. In my sassy personality. In the vast love I’m surrounded by from the many who loved her.

Most of all: in the God she so loved. He will always be of help.

Hanging onto that is the only thing that will get me through the next week.

Here goes.