Emotions After 3 Months & 2 Days

Yesterday, I had a not-so-mature fit while talking to my mother. My mom, the same lady who worked her fingers to the bone taking care of out-of-town guests and family for two weeks. The lady who has come up more in the past three months than she did all of last year. The lady who is working hard on a special gift for my baby, the Princess. The lady who regularly gives up chunks of her time to help me by taking care of the children. I became upset because she hadn't called me on Monday, which was the three-month anniversay of Mark's passing.

While intellectually I know that there are many people who miss Mark and think of him often, sometimes it feels like I am the only person who remembers him, besides the children. Noone really talks about him to me, and I feel like he was such an important person, people should be remembering him. That is not to say people set out to deliberately avoid the topic of his life, but the conversation usually is about how myself and the children are doing. And their caring about us is SO appreciated.

Today, my mom told me how she was constantly thinking of him. That she misses Mark every time she walks into the room he would stay in when he was in downstate Illinois for work. That she has a picture of him on her desk playing mah jongg, and she smiles thinking of how passionately he played the game. That she misses him so much she still sometimes cry. And that people sometimes don't want to upset me by talking about him, and how they miss him.

Is it sick of me that hearing all of this made me feel better? It made me remember that he DID matter to others, that there were many more people who loved him than just the children and me. It felt like a weight had been lifted - I wasn't alone in my grief. Someone I love misses and loves the man who meant (and means) the world to me.

I would encourage anyone who knows a person who has lost a loved one to talk about the one who has passed. It helps more than you could know to hear how memories others have.

Yet once again, my mom has been the source of a blessing to me.