One year later and happy birthday

Dear Mom,

It has been now over a year since I last saw you. I have written this one-year death anniversary letter so many times in my mind.

I have been dreading this day almost since the day you died. I just didn’t like the thought of being a whole year away from you, and dreaded each new demarcation of time over the last year.

I found myself in the days leading up to the anniversary sort of speechless, unsure what to actually say now that the time was here.

Over the last few weeks, I have done a lot of reflecting over the last year. And remarked just how is it that it has been an entire year since you were here.

They only good thing that I can say about a year elapsing is that I am over most of the dreaded “firsts” without you:

First wake-up.

First day.

First week.

First month.

First Thanksgiving.

First Christmas.

First Birthday.

First Easter.

First Mother’s Day.

First change of the leaves.

First snow.

First vacation.

First laugh.

First major life change.

First new family member born.

First spring.

First summer.

All without you.

Of course, there will be more firsts without you. My life will be full of firsts without you.

I think I have come to terms with the fact that there will always be things you should have been here for, and you’re not. New experiences and lives and events, without you.

Times where I turn around and wonder, “where are you…?”

But, without a doubt, the first year full of firsts is the hardest. This first year required a near daily recalibration of what my life meant without you in it.

So, to mark the first anniversary of your death, I knew I needed to honor it in a way that meant something to me, to you.

I needed to honor the passage of time and the absence of you from my life in a way that felt ceremonial and important.

I had wanted the family to go to Hawaii over your death anniversary and birthday, which is of course, today. I knew last year the day you died that your birthday being just five days later would be nearly impossible to experience at home, so I was able to get the family together and go to Cannon Beach to mourn, to grieve, to honor, and to celebrate. I wanted to do that this year too, but it just didn’t happen.

Because it didn’t happen, I felt a little stuck. Disappointed if I was being honest. At times, however, I also felt relieved, because the plan is to let your ashes go in Hawaii, and I just am not ready to let all of you go yet; those ashes feel like one of the last vestiges of you I have left.

So I pondered and reflected.

I thought about who I was in the weeks leading up to your death. The regret and guilt I still carry from traveling right before you died. The denial I was clearly experiencing. I allowed myself to wade into these memories and feelings of last year and let myself sit and think and feel and cry and get angry.

I thought a lot about the first few days, weeks, and months after your death. How everything now looking back seems…foggy.

We were all in this “grief haze” as I have come to call it. You were finally gone after all that time of slowly watching you slip through our fingers, and if being totally honest, we were all exhausted from caregiver fatigue.

Our first family photo without you

And the administration that comes with death is daunting. There is so much to do, so many I’s to dot and t’s to cross, that the business of mourning didn’t seem to really hit me for many months.

I look back at our time in Cannon Beach and sometimes wonder how it all came to be. How did we get there? I guess we went through the motions.

Watching my first sunset without you

I think back to the things in that first week without you that were my literal and figurative security blankets, the things that got me through.

One of which was your white blanket that I took off of you after you died. I carried it with me to Cannon Beach and regularly breathed you in deeply. I wanted to suck all of the smell out of that blanket that was you until it was gone. I remember I would wrap myself in it and cry. Cry at the thought that you were gone, and then cry at the thought that someday your smell would be gone from the blanket.

I made a silly vow to myself one time nuzzled under your white blanket – I wouldn't wash it for at least a year. I needed to get through this first year without you, with something still intact from you. I remember thinking it and immediately thinking that you would think that was gross and weird.

I vowed anyways and laughed.

I still sleep with your blanket. It still hasn’t been washed. A few weeks ago, I retrieved it from the laundry pile. Cris must have thought it needed washing.

It didn’t.

On June 24, 2018, I brought your blanket onto the boat to celebrate you. I decided I am just not ready to wash it yet.

It still doesn’t need washing.

---

As I have been reflecting about the last year, something that has struck me as so interesting is the fact that you never went through this. This incredibly intense, soul-shattering grief. Your Grandma died over 20 years ago, and that was probably the most profound grief you ever experienced, but you never lost your Mom. And you definitely never lost her at 31.

I reflected on the life lessons you taught me and things you prepared me for. None of them was how to do this. How to do life for so long without you. How to grieve and live and cry and laugh. Sometimes all at the same time.

I am constantly struck with the irony and sadness that you never experienced this. I am also glad, because I am going to be real, it fucking blows.

Rocking my "Still with Her" Hillary Clinton shirt in your honor on your birthday last year -
still with you, always with you

However, one thing you did experience, that I have yet to experience, is what it is like to have to leave a child or your children.

This of course, you now know all too well.

While you were alive, I didn’t fully appreciate just how hard this whole business of leaving your children behind might be for you. The struggles and successes, happiness and heartache of our lives, and the lives of your grandchildren, that you wouldn't be there to see.

It must have been a lonely place to be.

It, however, is one of the only things that brings me any comfort or relief. Not in your suffering and loss over having to leave us, but in that this was hard for you, too.

There was heartache and grief and loss and sadness and regret and guilt and pain. And you miss us, too. You miss me.

You felt and feel, I believe, all of the same things that I did and do and will continue to do.

I was watching an episode of a show last week, which I won’t name here as not to spoil it. There is a scene when the main character is briefly reunited with her young daughter and then has to say goodbye again, abruptly, after a multi-year absence. As the scene began to play out, for one of the very first times, I really saw this scenario from your perspective.

What do you say? How do you convey to your child what they mean to you? What they will always mean to you? How do you assure them that everything will be ok – even if you aren’t around. How do you make them understand that everyday without them is agony – and that you love them, dearly, forever and for always.

The little girl asks if her Mom tried to find her, she responds that she did, so hard. She says tells her daughter that its ok to be mad at her, and that she is so sorry she couldn’t be there for her, but that she wanted to.

Watching this exchange nearly killed me. I almost had to turn it off, but I kept watching. I felt a deep sense of compassion for the loss you must have felt in leaving your own children. In leaving us, in leaving me.

I wailed from a deep place of agony when she says to her daughter that she wants her to know that, “she will always be her mommy.” She goes on to tell her that even though she won’t necessarily be there, she wants her daughter to, “live her life.” The little daughter eventually asks, “Mommy, am I ever going to see you again?” at which point I nearly lose it, and her Mom replies, “You know what, I am going to try.” She reassures her daughter, what seems like a hundred times, that everything is going to be ok. She asks her to be brave and hugs her and lets out a silent wail. I see the pain on her face and I think of you. The last thing she wants to do is leave her daughter.

But she has no choice. She has to go.

The episode ends and I think of you. I think of your loss and love and heartache in all of this tangled mess of loss and love and heartache. I think about your one-year death anniversary approaching in a few days. And I am comforted, ever so slightly.

You would want me to be happy, to live my life.

And then I decide. I want to go out on Michael’s boat on Puget Sound and spread some of your ashes. Not all of them – because I am just not ready – but some.

So we make a plan. Michael and I will set out from Edmonds early Sunday morning and head to Deception Pass, a place you loved, and Jennifer, with the boys and Dad will meet us there. They will get on the boat and we will cruise around the bay and let a little bit of you go.

Dad asks the day before what flowers I am bringing, and I say I haven’t thought of it. He says we need peach roses – your favorite. I didn't know this. I am struck by the fact that I am still learning about you, a year after you are gone. “Your wedding flowers,” he explains further.

Sunday comes, and if I have learned nothing else this year, it is this:

We make plans, and then the universe laughs.

Life and love and loss and laughter and logistics get all twisted up and they don’t go to plan – but you have to keep going anyways.

Michael and I left two hours late, but made the journey anyway. We cruised up the east side of Whidbey Island, and it was Michael’s idea, to stop at places we went to as a family along the way.

I cried as the boat bumped along and “Sherry Baby” played in the background.

We got to Deception Pass and the weather was bad. Jennifer, the boys, and Dad came aboard for a brief time, but there were babies and toddlers in life jackets unhappy and people were seasick.

The best laid plans.

We didn’t get to scatter you as a family in Deception Pass – but that was ok. I knew you would have laughed – and likely were laughing – at the scene.

I suggested we spread some from the dock, but Michael thought it was too dirty and didn’t want you washing ashore.

The best laid plans.

After eating lunch, Jennifer, the boys, and Dad went on their way, via car, home. Michael and I turned the boat south. He suggested we go to Port Ludlow – the last place we went as a family, and park the boat in the bay, out in front of the condo we stayed in.

It was the best idea he has perhaps ever had.

For the few hours it took us to cruise all the way down to Port Ludlow, we didn’t see a single other boat other than a ferry. It was beautiful, and the sun was shining.

You would have loved it.

I scattered flower petals along the way –

None of them peach roses, however. Dad couldn't find any.

The best laid plans.

But I scattered anyways. And I cried and I laughed and we popped champagne and toasted you.

And then there was a rainbow. It chased us like a dolphin, for hours.

 

“There she is.” Michael said.

He poured you a drink of champagne directly onto his boat floor. We laughed.

And then we cried.

Then I said you probably would have chided us for wasting good alcohol – and we laughed and cried again.

 This business of grieving while living is a messy one. A complicated one.

We eventually made it to Port Ludlow and hung out for about an hour. We played music from your memorial – some of your favorites and some because I am a masochist – a new word I taught Michael that day.

Like, Bette Middler’s, “Baby Mine”

I let your ashes sift through my fingers and watched as they hit the water. They spread out like glitter under the water’s surface and sun’s rays.

 

I covered the glittering pieces of you with petals.

Michael spread the rest of you and it was beautiful. And perfect. And hard. And agonizing. And cathartic. And messy. And healing. And excruciatingly painful.

And exactly what we both needed.

We talked to you and bellowed to the waves and sky and to you how much we missed you. How much we loved and continue to love you.

I put on my Blue Minnie ears in your honor - blue and Disney - and drank more champagne than I should have, rocked out to some of your favorite tunes, and enjoyed feeling the sun on my face. Just like you would have done. 

We toasted and cried and laughed and embraced. We wished you were there.

But you were.

We know you were.

I thanked him again for taking such good care of you. I said, “you loved her so good.”

And he did. Sweet, sweet Michael.

After all was sad and done, we found one petal left on the boat. One petal which had the distinct look of a jack-o-lantern. Michael said, look, here she is again. It reminded us of, ‘rollin’ pumpkins” of course, and then Michael rolled that flower petal pumpkin off the boat, too, and we laughed as the tears streamed down.

 

On our way back to Edmonds, I reflected more about the day we had – the 10 hours and over 100 miles we spent on the boat - and the last 365 days without you. All of the pain and love and excitement and loss and amazing and excruciating things that have already happened without you. And how I have changed. How I am learning to go on without you.

I thought about a remark I have heard from so many people –

That it gets easie as time goes on.

I have decided I am just not sure if that's true. I think it will change – this grief and loss and ache and hole I have where you were supposed to be.

But I am just not sure it will ever get easier, it will just change shape.

The time between Mother’s Day and your birthday, approximately one month in time, with your death anniversary sandwiched in five days before your birthday, and just a few days after the summer solstice – will always be a difficult time for me. Too much loss and reminder of the love and the life all at once. But perhaps that is what will get me through – all of the love and the life all at once.

Celebrating your birthday last year in Cannon Beach

I decided you dying right as summer started was a gift. Had you died in the middle of January, it might have been too hard and too easy to just not get out of bed – let alone on with our lives without you. I think it is your eternal reminder that there is beauty and wonder and amazing things happening in your favorite season, while there is loss and heartache and emptiness.

And that is this life.

Cheersing to you on your birthday last year - with your favorite rose

It is everything all at once. The love with the loss. The adorable with the anguish. The laughter with the loneliness.

And there is always goodness; even in the darkest moments. This year has taught me that. Your death has taught me that.

In the Handmaids Tale, Margaret Atwood writes:

“I am sorry there is so much pain in this story. I am sorry it is in fragments, like a body caught in crossfire, or pulled apart by force. But there is nothing I can do to change it. I have tried to put some of the good things in as well. I keep on going with this limping and mutilated story because I want you to hear it, as I will hear yours too if I ever get the chance. If I meet you, or you escape, in the future, or in heaven. By telling you anything at all, I am believing in you. I believe you into being. Because I am telling you this story, I am willing your existence. I tell, therefore, you are.”

On this day, what would have been your 64^th birthday, happy birthday, Mom. This year has been nothing if not empty without you.

But I have tried to put some of the good things in as well.

I miss you, I love you.

Happy birthday.

Love,

Kimberly