07/28/10

Vernice Elaine Munoz

October 28, 1943 - July 24, 2004

08-05-08

We left on our trip to the coast on the anniversary of my mom passing away.

I was surprised how little I dwelled on it while we took the long (and boring) drive across the state.  I felt things had finally settled down to the point where that particular anniversary didn't bother me much (I had also taken my dad out to dinner the night before and he seemed okay as well).

We then went to the highland games in Enumclaw.  It hit me while I was there that the last time I was at the games was the weekend after mom died (the whole family went there) and before that, the last time I was at the games was actually with my mom (before she got sick).

I got into a mode where it seemed like everything reminded me either of her or when we were all there after she was gone.

The next day I found myself at all the used book stores mom and I would often scour.

A few days later we went to a restaurant in Tacoma which gave me a perfect view of the hospital she stayed in, framed by Mount Rainier.

Then we passed by a bookstore I remember taking her to when her hair was just starting to grow back after chemo, puttering along with her walker.

I just about lost it.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, other than just jotting my thoughts down and coming to grip with the realization that four years later, there are still plenty of things that can unlock the floodgates and bring a torrent of memories and emotions to the foreground.

Does it mean I'll avoid those places in the future?  No.

As upsetting as some of the memories and emotions were, there was just as many (if not more) pleasant memories and emotions associated with those same places.

I was just surprised at the intensity of them.  It seems like such a long time ago, but I guess four years really isn't that long.

11-01-07

I was so busy getting my computer up and running from its hard drive crashing, that I had totally forgotten when my mom's birthday rolled around (10-28).

Cathy came home from work and walked downstairs where I was furiously re-installing programs.  She asked me how I was doing and I mumbled "okay" while entering a software key.

She then asked how I was doing considering what day it was.

I froze.

A slight dread crept upon me and I turned in my chair as it dawned on me what she might be talking about.  I snapped back around and looked at my desk calendar.

Sure enough.  It was mom's birthday.

I just sat there for a few moments.  How could I have forgotten?  Shouldn't I have been dwelling on it all day?  What should I do now?  I started to feel like I had betrayed her memory by letting something as stupid as a busted computer push thoughts of her out of my brain.

Cathy snapped me out of it by suggesting that we call up dad and take him out to dinner.

As we ate and talked and laughed, the fact that it was her birthday never came up.  What did come up, as it always does, was stories about something she did or something she said - just brought up in casual conversation: "Mom and I did something like that once..." or "That idiot really pissed your mom off when he..."

I started to not feel so bad because it dawned on me that something I had expressed a few years ago was not quite correct.

After she passed away, I said it seemed like my life was now a jigsaw puzzle with a piece missing that I could never find again.

I realized, sitting there chatting with dad and Cathy, that my life's jigsaw puzzle never lost that piece.  It's still there, interconnected with all the other pieces; continually making the whole thing stronger.

10-29-06

Yesterday was mom's birthday.  She would have been 63 years old.

I had thought about saying something on the anniversary of her passing this year, but for some reason I couldn't think of anything to say.  I couldn't figure out why it was so hard to comment on the second anniversary of her death until it got closer to her birthday.

The chemo I take every week fries my brain cells so that I lose a lot of memory.  For the most part, it's a pain in the ass.  However in this case, a lot of the stuff that was going on around the time my mom died has been lost to me, which I have come to accept as good thing.  Most of the memories I have of her now are from before she got sick; in essence, how she lived instead of how she died.

She has been gone for a little over two years.  I can't remember how long she was sick, but I think it was around two years as well.  Neither one of those things matter compared to the almost 40 years she was part of my life.

I spent the first year after she died, dwelling on how she died, and letting the anniversary of her death impact me (and not in a positive way) and I wasn't sure what to do when her birthday rolled around.  This year I have taken the first tentative steps in dealing with my memories in a different way. 

I'm not going to dwell on the anniversary of her death; I'm going to celebrate the anniversary of her life.

I'm not saying I not going to grieve anymore.  I'll probably do that to a degree for the rest of my life.  I just can't see myself spending additional negative energy on a small moment from a full life.  It's what she was and what she did during those 40 years that I knew her.  It's what I'm going to spend my energy on in remembering her.  Not how and when she died; but when and how she lived.

I'm not sure what form it will take, but I hope it will be a positive one.