my birthday - the first without my mom

i was anticipating that this would be difficult to get through - she once told me that on my birthdays, she thought of me all the day - i thought this was both sweet and over-much. but i got it when it was her birthday on january 3rd -i thought of her all day and it was like tip-toeing through a mine-field; one wrong step and BOOM i was back on the planet Grief.

yesterday was also the inauguration of barak obama. i don't know if that was a distraction, but thinking of my mom was actually a sweet sweet feeling - warmth through my veins. a feeling that she was "with" me and that it was going to be fine. that it would be just like this, predominantly so, in the future. i am still struck, like with a baseball bat, at how much i miss my mom - but it does, for the most part, seem more in my control.

do you see how measured and guarded i am about this hope? how i leave an out for when i need to weep? this time next year - this time last year - this is how i've been measuring out time. soon it will be this-time-last-year PLUS one day - 366 days - and then what? do these points of demarcation mean anything?

what i know is that at certain times i'll be sad for no reason i can readily identify; then i look at the calendar - on a cellular level, my body knows there's an anniversary headed my way and to batten down the hatches. as for memories of my mom, i don't ever want to forget these anniversaries. i cannot tell you the exact day or even what year i was divorced; january something. i was diagnosed with breast cancer spring 1994, but whether this was april or may, i'm not sure. but the DNA of my being knows the exact moment my mom died. i had her hand in my hand when i felt her go away from us. and as painful as that might be, it would be more painful if i were to ever forget.

peace and love
christine