Option 3!
I had a dream last night and when I woke I could not remember ANY OF IT! Has this ever happened to you? It is so annoying! Especially if you are like me and remember your dreams. As I laid there trying desperately to go back to sleep, thoughts of my mom washed over me. This happens from time to time. I guess it is all part of the thing they call GRIEF.
The day my mom said she was not scared....
This night, for some reason, all I kept thinking of was one particular day when she was in the ICU at Presbyterian Hospital. This particular day was haunting me. LITERALLY. My heart started racing, I tried my breathing techniques I had learned from lots of different sources, and nothing was working. I decided I had a few choices:
I could get up and read or watch a TV show
I could keep breathing in and out like I was, but I was getting dizzy!
I could just really go back to that day and let whatever it was that was bothering me work itself out.
I chose option 3. If there is one thing I have learned from the grief from the loss of my mom, it is that you cannot control it. You cannot bury it, you cannot swipe it under a rug, you cannot put your head in the sand like an ostrich. It will not let you! Trust me. You might think you are running from it, but the rest of the world sees you and it is there. So I have learned somedays or nights you just got to roll around in it and get dirty!
As I laid there I really focused on that day that was coming to mind. I could see the two of us in her ICU room. She was sitting up which was a huge success and we were talking. I remember her saying, "I think I am dying Amy." Very calmly and very matter of fact. I didn't know what to do with that I remember. I recall saying, "Are you scared?" She calmly said, "No, everyone has to do it sometime."
It was all very surreal. We did not say much more, but I remember holding her hand and just looking into her BEAUTIFUL blue eyes willing her not to die. Have I ever told you she had the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen? I miss those eyes.
Thinking back on it that day I wish I would have said more. I wish I would have asked her more. She was such a spiritual person and so close to God that I wish I would have pushed more on why she thought she was dying, why she was not worried, or what would she miss the most. Maybe if I had I would not be so worried about her. I don't know.
Dying is a scary and uncomfortable thing to talk about. ESPECIALLY with your mom while she is recovering in ICU. I feel like I was not finished with that conversation with my mom. I feel like maybe she came to me in my dream and forced me to deal with that day. I don't know. I somehow fell back to sleep because the next thing I remember is my alarm going off. I think my mom came to me that night and sat with me until I finished our conversation in my own head and came to some kind of peace that she was ok.
I am still so sad about losing my mom and I still find myself really wondering if she can hear me and see me when I am struggling. What I am learning through all this though is you have to choose option 3. You have to face it dead on (for lack of a better word) and look it square in the eyes and deal with it. Then and only then can you live your life to its fullest and I know that is what my mom would want for me and I am sure that is what your loved one would want too.
Won't you choose option 3 and Choose life along with me?
xo,
Amy
