8.21.99

The call came during the early morning. I had spent the last four hours tossing and turning and had just fallen into a restless sleep when the phone rang. My eyes flew open and I counted the seconds between the first ring and the moment ex's mother finally tiptoed into the room to wake me. Ex's mom didn't need to say a word; I already knew who was calling and what she was going to say.

The night before, my neighbor from back home/my mom's best friend (AS) had called me (at ex's house) to tell me that my mom was back in the hospital and wasn't doing well. She said I should probably plan to come home because she didn't think my mom wasn't going to live for much longer. The news came as a surprise to me - although I knew the cancer was back and her health had declined, I had no idea it was that bad.

The last time I had talked to my mom was a few weeks earlier. I was 21 and my mom and I had a strange realtionship. After arguing over everything for years, we had just gotten to the point in which we were starting to talk to each other like actual civilized people; however, we were still nowhere near the point in which we expressed our feelings and had deep discussions. After that call, I was confused, angry, and scared; I felt like I needed to do something, but wasn't sure what to do. Ultimately, I decided to try to communicate with her in the way I knew best - I sent her a card/letter. The letter was short, but I was able to say a few things that I felt needed to be said (it was all positive). Looking back, I wish I would have said so much more. I just didn't know how at that time.

When I picked up the phone, AS told me what I already knew - my mom had died. She filled me in on a few details and told me she would break the news to my relatives and my mom's friends (for which I was so, so grateful). I rushed off the phone to make the travel arrangements - as much as I didn't want to go home and face what waited for me there, I felt an intense need to get there as soon as possible. Unfortunately, the day my mom died was the day I was scheduled to move to Chicago. My car was already packed and there was a mini-move and a fourteen-hour drive between ex's house and my house. Luckily, Beebs was already in the Chicago-area (in the 'burbs) with her mom, so we (ex & I) were able to stop at her house & dump off my stuff. Beebs and some other friends moved it into our apartment during the week I was in Michigan.

That week I spent at home is now mostly a blur. I slept very little and cruised by on autopilot during the days. It was an intense week, and I was overwhelmed by everything that was required of me (funeral planning, greeting/hosting relatives, meeting with lawyers about the will, etc.). I also knew I had a limited amount of time to deal with things in Michigan, as I was due to start my student-teaching position back in Chicago (I ended up starting a week late). Although I had my moments, I really didn't allow myself to process much that week (or during the coming weeks). I had to block out my emotions as much as possible in order to get through it all.

The months that followed were as bad (if not worse) as that week. Those months involved commuting between Chicago and Michigan, finding a home for my dog (absolutely heartbreaking), packing up the house/preparing it for sale, and meeting with my lawyer (who ended up being a giant asshole and took advantage of my age & the situation). I was also teaching five classes at the high school and taking two classes of my own (which were required during the student-teaching semester). On top of everything else, I decided to end my almost four-year relationship with ex (which is another long story).

My mom was 46 when she died and would have turned 56 this past January (on the 21st - yes, she was born and died on a 21st). Although 1999-2000 was a horribly stressful time in my life, I think her death really hit me the hardest years later. It was then that realized just how much I had lost - not only had both of my parents died by the time I was 21, but I also never had the chance to develop a good relationship with my mother. I feel like I was cheated out of something intrinsically important to my emotional well-being.

Although they have decreased in frequency over the years, I still have dreams about my parents. The dreams usually involve sickness, death, and other unpleasantries. Occasionally, I'll have the ones that hit me the hardest - the ones where my parents are alive and are somehow involved with my life in Chicago (one involved my dad meeting M; another involved them visiting me at my job). A few years ago, I dreamt that I took them sight-seeing and we posed for pictures in front of Buckingham Fountain. Afterward, my parents laughed and rolled down the windows in my car as I drove too fast down Lake Shore Drive. The wind whipped through or hair and it smelled like the beach. When I woke up, I jumped out of bed and grabbed my camera so that I could look at the photos from our fabulous day... it took a few minutes before I realized my wonderful memory had really all been just another horrible dream.