I still don't know.

 I woke up this morning with you on my mind.
I miss you more than you could ever know.
Four years.
Four.
When I grow up, I want to be just like you.
I still don't know the answer.
I love you.
I wish you could come home.
Nothing will ever be the same.
I have to do this without you.
I'd much rather have your help.

I wonder if you're okay, I know I'm not.

Exactly two years ago, on this day, I got up like any other. I dressed in a jean skirt that brushes my ankles. Nothing was wrong as I drove to meet the girls for our morning commute. We got to work at 7 am as usual. I was completely unaware that at 10:30 am on that beautiful, Friday morning, my life would forever be changed.

My phone rang it's normal ring. I don't know why, but somehow I thought that when that call came, the sound would be different. Alerting me of what was to come. I wasn't prepared. I wasn't ready. I gave my usual work greeting, "This is Amanda." What I heard on the other end was far from usual.

"Chris is dead."

With those three words, my world was shattered. I knew she was sick and I knew she wasn't immortal. My step-father was made to repeat those words to me over and over. As much as I had prepared myself for that moment, I never truly believed it was going to come. But it did. Even if I wasn't believing it.

Some people are appalled at the way the news was broken to me. I ask you this, why? Is there any "good" way to tell someone that their best friend, their mother, has died? How is a man who has just found the love of his life, his wife, his best friend, dead in her bed expected to make that phone call, choose his words so carefully as to soften the blow for her only child on the other end? There is no "good" way. No words, no matter how well chosen, will ever soften the blow.

Even after two full years it's still so, raw. Unbelievable, even. Sometimes I feel like people look at me and wonder how long it's going to be before I get over it, so to speak. I know now that I will never get over it, only learn to cope better.

One year ago today, I started this blog for that very reason. To cope. To get out what I was feeling on the one year anniversary of my mother's death, even if I wasn't quite sure what that was.

If you've seen the entries about my mother, perhaps you've figured it out, just as I have.

I miss you, mom.

Currently Reading 1984 By George Orwell see related

November 14, 2003 was one of the worst days of my life. If not the worst. It was the day my mother died. Here I sit, one year later. I just can't believe that my life goes on without her. Yet it does. I get up everyday and live my life. She does not. It doesn't seem fair.

Some days she consumes my every thought, other days I do not think of her at all. Does this make me a bad person? At least the nightmares have stopped. I would dream that she was still alive and playing a practical joke on me. I would wake up hating her.

Oh God, that day. I see it like I'm watching it from above. There are days that it just plays over and over in my head keeping me from sleep. I sometimes wonder if I will ever forget. Forgetting may be good or bad. I really just don't know.

Someone had to identify her before they would cremate her. I struggled between giving the funeral director a photo so he could do or doing it myself. In the end, I did it myself. It was something that I have never discussed with anyone except my husband, soon to be ex-husband. Even then, a few months had passed since I had gone. I don't think I would ever forgive him if he shared my experience with anyone. I don't know if doing it was a good or bad thing. Maybe after more time has passed I will know.

I have no regrets regarding our relationship. We had been estranged for years, but over the last five years of her life we became best friends. Just mere weeks before she died, we were on the phone one night for hours on end and for some reason I did something that she and I never did, I told her how I felt about her. I didn't just say that I loved her, I went into great detail and specifics about everything and in turn, she did the same. I don't know why I did it, but today I am glad that I did. She died knowing exactly how I felt about her and leaving me behind knowing exactly how she felt about me. I take some comfort in that.

I sometimes wonder if that was some cosmic force preparing me for the inevitable.

My son is only two, too young to have any memories of her. My daughter, on the other hand, is four. I try to keep the memories fresh in her mind so she doesn't forget. She carries a picture of her Nana in her purse. We take out the picture and talk about how her Nana taught her to play patty-cake and sing the songs my mother sang to her. We do this more now than in the months after her death. I guess I'm learning to deal with it.

I go through extreme emotions. One moment I can't deal with it, other times I'm the picture of togetherness about it. I feel like I shouldn't be like this a year later. That I should be over it already.

How long does it take to get over the death of your mother who also happened to be your best friend?