A lot has changed since my last blog post – my Mom died.

I’m not even really sure how to write this blog post. Writing her obituary was a piece of cake. I used to write obituaries and edit them when I worked in journalism. But it hasn’t really hit me that’s she’s gone yet.

She died last Saturday, October 15th and 9:11pm (ironic number). One of my best friends, Julia, was with me when she left me. Oddly enough, and I felt a little comforted by it, the nurse’s name was Kevin and the doctor’s name was Howie. I cracked up laughing when he said his name while I was crying.

Last week they came and got her hospital bed and I cleaned up the living room, where she had been sleeping. My best friend from high school, Amanda, who I hadn’t really hung out with in a long, long time came to stay a few days and it was as if no time had passed. We went and got a small, cheap, but comfy small sofa for the living room and I set up my desk so that I could make the sunroom into my craft room for my shops. That’s still a hot mess right now, but the living room is pretty set up. I’ve kept some of her clothes and donated the others to Goodwill, along with one of her wheelchairs.

Yesterday, Amanda and I met up with Julia to pick up my Mama’s ashes. She’s in two boxes – one for more and one to bury back home in our family plot so that she can be with her parents again.

Amanda left this morning and now I’ve been sitting here staring at the bag that box boxes are in. It’s on top of the thing that I’m going to put my stereo/record player when I get the nerve to actually pick the bag up and do something with them.

I sat on the sofa and watched “House of the Dragon” and “Grey’s Anatomy” while staring at the bag. Now I’ve ate lunch sitting at my desk checking on work things and stared at the bags. I can’t stick them in my closet because there’s been a leak that’s being fixed in there.

Since she’s died, people have told me how proud she was of me but I don’t know if I can really do this. I’m sitting here crying as I write this because I think it might be finally hitting me now. I cried last week when I got flowers from friends and people that I look up to and admire. I’ve had people that I don’t even know donate to a gofundme and I cried. I cried a little when we got her ashes. Everytime I talk to a family member on the phone I start to cry.

But it still just feels like I’m on a trip or that she’s at dialysis or at the hospital, like she was in 2020 when I couldn’t go see her because of COVID-19. It’s like I’m going to here “Chances” by the Backstreet Boys play on my phone and I’m going to pick it up and she’s going to yell at me about why I haven’t answered the damn phone.

I keep thinking about all the free time I’m going to have now and I don’t really want any of it. I don’t want more free time to write or do a podcast. I don’t want more free time to go out and meet new people. I’ve spent my entire adult life taking care of her and now she’s gone. I just want to go pick up my mama, lug her wheelchair in the trunk of my car, and have her bitch to me about NASCAR.

Since my Granny died when I was 16 and my aunt died when I was 18, it’s just been us. And I know I’m not alone and I have people, but it’s not the same.