Seven Plus Months...

It's so hard to believe that it's been over seven months since Mother's passing July 9, 2008. Monday, her actual "anniversary"/"memorial"/whatever I was barely holding things together. Somehow I managed to get it together to get out of bed and get my butt to work, but I wondered if I would last the day. The film in my mind of that day Jean called telling me of Mother's stroke and all that lead up to my eventual arrival at the hospital (thirty minutes, I think, too late, played over and over in my mind. Each replay added more detail, the anguish in Dad's face, the pain in Jean's face, the incredible surrealness of the entire situation -- most of all the pain that we all knew that Dad was experiencing -- the process of saying "Goodbye" to Mother. It still breaks my heart. Not so much for my own pain, but reliving the pain that everyone else was going through made it so unbearable. How do things like this happen? Somehow I made it through work on Monday and Tuesday didn't prove to be much better. It was just dark period. Then, somehow I realized that I might have to take control and to stop reinforcing the synapse that keeps taking my mind to loss of Mother and Dad and to try to remember the happier times. Naturally, those memories will bring along the sad ones, too, but maybe I just need to make a more concerted effort to keep remembering the happy times and let the sad ones find their own home. Hopefully, somewhere not so close to the surface. Maybe it's a turning point in grief for me, maybe it's all crap and this won't work, but we'll see. For whatever reason, today seemed to be better and I didn't find myself dwelling upon "the loss" as much. Perhaps it's just a high spot in the roller coaster of emotions? We'll see.

Mother and Dad will NEVER be forgotten. Nor will those painful memories. The pain will always be there, but at some point they will just meld into the person that I am. One of my favorite photos of them is above. Taken at, I think, my cousin Susan Kurokawa's wedding. I'm sure most people see different things in the same photo, but here I see Mother and Dad looking lovingly at the camera -- their love coming through the photo to me, the viewer. It reminds me of the photo that Harry Potter first saw of his parents, except unfortunately, this one doesn't move. (If only it did.) I use this photo as the start up screen on my GPS and as I see it each time, it's as if I have their protection in my drives. The smallest of comforts in life, and yet, such an important one. Always there, frozen in time, always with me, in my Jeep or out.

It's hard to believe that it's been over seven months. It feel like only yesterday, although then we were all so numb from the shock. Now, it seems more real.

To help brighten life up some, Fred and I are house shopping. That's always an exciting adventure. As Fred approaches tenure, we thought we would start looking. The timing might be right with the mortgage rates so low and it being a buyer's market. Of course, we have a house to sell, too, but it's more in our favor to be upscaling, so depending upon what we find, this may all happen sooner rather than later. It's fun to attend the open houses and to arrange for viewings of houses. Will this work? Can we compromise on this if we have that? And, most importantly, how does the house FEEL to our souls? The right one will come along and we'll know it when we see it and are in it.

I'm happy that this entry seems happier than past entries. Maybe this is a turning point. Maybe not. Sunday morning I woke up crying and we're only three days away from that dark point. We'll see. I will never forget, but perhaps the pain will lessen. I don't want to pain to go away, it's my confirmation of the love. It's a part of who I am.