Dealing with Death

I know that I've been missing from my blog and social networks for a while.  It just wasn't a focus of mine over the past week or so.  My mom passed away at 130 AM on June 2nd.  She had been battling multiple myeloma for a couple of years now.  She was in and out of the hospital over the past few months, but she checked in, for the last time, the day after Mother's Day.

It was within a week that we learned that it was pretty much a waiting game.  We didn't know when, but we knew that death was inevitable and that the doctors could do no more.  Although it was painful to watch my mom fade with each passing day, things were made a bit easier to know how many people loved her.  She had tons of visitors and got to benefit from the love from so many people whose lives she had touched over the years.

To me, that was the true meaning of a legacy.  A legacy isn't leaving children behind or having some statue built in your honor.  A legacy is leaving people with a part of you that they will keep with them forever.  My mom passed away with family at her side and that's what anyone should want.  Not some phone call saying something unexpected happened, but to be able to actually say "goodbye."

I feel a sense of pride of how wonderful of a lady she was based on all of the people who have come by to visit my dad.  How could one person have touched so many lives in 69 years?  I know that the strength and pride that I feel today will stay with me after the funeral.  The services on tomorrow will be "closed casket" at my mom's request, so yesterday's viewing at the funeral home was my last time seeing her.  The tears I shed on yesterday were not because I was feeling sorry for myself or asking "why?"  They were tears of gratitude of me saying "thank you."  "Thank you" for keeping me in line when I was a child and for never stop being my mother after adulthood.  Even though I'm dealing with death, the memories of the life lessons that you taught will still guide me going forward.

I ask that my readers understand that I don't plan on responding to any comments on this post although I do appreciate them.  I need to get past this feeling I've had.  It's not healthy.  After a few days of feeling lost, I'm slowly returning back to my everyday self.  That's what my mom would have wanted.  For me to be me.  For me to be the strong one and to take care of my grandmother and my father.  To do that, I have to have the strength to move on...

...And Momma didn't raise no punk.