Hello everyone. I am at a loss. My mother passed on the day before Halloween 2015. It's been 2 months and there are days where I can't breathe. That night when the hospice nurse called I knew, I knew what she was going to say before she said it. And that was the night my heart broke. Broke right in half and it feels like it will never mend again. Those first few weeks are a blur. The week before the service seems far away and the service itself just gives me bits and pieces. These past two months, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas were . . . hard just doesn't seem like a strong enough word. Momma did the holidays . . . she WAS the holidays. I went through the motions, I'm still going through the motions. I'm fine during the day, when I'm with people. But I get home to my apartment, the cat that was originally her cat comes to greet me and I melt into a puddle of despair. I love Christmas. The traditions, the decorations, the feeling of Christmas and this year, the 1st year, I did it all. I decorated, I wrapped Christmas presents, and it felt as little like Christmas as any other day. I felt guilty for enjoying it and at the same time like it brought me closer to her. And yet it did not feel like Christmas.

She was so sick. She was only 69 years old. Early onset dementia, after years and years of physical and mental health issues that started when her father died when she was 7 and she was left in the care of her physically and emotionally abusive mother. She was a victim of sexual abuse as a child, entered into an emotionally abuse marriage ( I love my father but he's a jerk. ) and lived a life trying to be happy with her children. Despite her illnesses, she lived for us, and for her grandchildren and great grandchildren. And then the dementia hit last Thanksgiving Day she finally gave in to the dementia. Spent almost 6 months in the hospital and then another 5 in a nursing home. She fought so long and so hard.

She was sent by ambulance to the hospital the Monday before Halloween because she was unresponsive when they went to wake her. The hospital tried what they could but she had a DNR order in her living will. She was sent to Hospice Friday morning. Friday afternoon, I went back to the hospital after leaving to deal with work and sat with her while doing homework and left to go to play volleyball for the evening, planning on going back first thing in the morning . . . That night was again a blur. The nurse was so kind, but her news was devastating. I don't remember the whole conversation, something about coming to the hospital, I told her I'd be right there but I had to make a few phone calls first. I hung up the phone as the first sob rocked me. I dialed the first number, my best friend who lost her mother in August, as the second sob broke and then it was done the dam broke and I cried and cried I simply couldn't stop.

Now two months and 3 days later, I still feel lost and empty. Boxes of her belongings sit around my apartment and I'm physically surrounded by the memory of her. I work with young school age children and there are days that I have to excuse myself from the classroom because something they said remind me of her and I don't want to upset them with my tears.

Will I ever not feel broken? Will the world right itself again?