3:59 p.m. - 2005-06-24
Anniversary
Happy Anniversary Mom.
This day 8 years ago, I sat smiling and pregnant in an insurance training course. My future was bright. I was in love, my husband wonderful. I was so excited about the baby. Mom was so excited about the baby too. Next week we were going to find out what the sex was. I couldn't wait. Grayson if it's a boy, Chloe if she's a girl. My clothes were getting a little snug, but Mom loaned my a few of her things so I didn't have to buy maternity just yet. They were size 12 and I was horrified my waist was that big!
Bill thought I was hormonally challenged. And I was. But he also thought I was beautiful. And I was.
That night, after class, I came home to our cheap, little, run-down apartment. Plastic sunflowers in blue glasses, nasty, pale blue apartment paint, and hand-me-down furniture. But the future was bright. I was young. I was in love. I was pregnant. And we were so excited.
Class had been long. My back hurt and I had to interrupt the instructor every hour to go pee. *giggle* Sorry 'bout that. After a dinner of noodles and canned veggies (we could only afford meat once a week), Bill and I crept into the bedroom to have sex and then afterward reminisce over when we could still smoke afterward. No cigarettes now, the baby is coming!!!
The phone rang.
And Bill answered.
"It's your Mom," he says, "And she sounds upset."
"Mom?"
crying in the background
"Momma? What's wrong? Where are you?"
still more crying.
"I'm at a rest stop, outside of Hot Springs."
"Why mom? what are you doing there?"
"I'm coming home, angie. I'm tired."
"I love you, Mom. I'm glad you're coming home! Guess what? Next week we find out the sex of the baby!!"
crying in the background.
"I love you, angie. Remember, no matter what I will always love you."
click....
Two days later, Bill came to me in my insurance class.
"They've found your mother, angie"
"Well, where is she then?" with such youthful ignorance I asked.
"They've FOUND her honey."
"Oh"
And that innocence was shattered, kneeling in the hallway, sobbing, and sobbing. Don't color my world with happy little rainbows. Don't fill my days with sunshine and daisies.
Everything trite and overdone and fucking predictable is applicable here. Suicide, they said it could NOT be suicide! Yet all those empty pill bottles on the floor of her car, and the late night phone call to say goodbye, and the fucking suicide note she left, gave it all away.
So eight years later I still mourn and grieve. I grieve for the lost Mother who cannot hold me in her arms and tell me I'm wonderful. In her arms I believed it. I grieve for the Grandmother who never knew my Chloe. But most of all, I grieve for myself. For losing the girl I was back then, when my mother was still alive.
I miss you, Mom.
Happy Anniversary.
