She should be turning 71 tomorrow.
It is her and my sisters and my cousins birthday. They were the birthday triplets.
Last year, on her 70th, we all got together and took pictures on the beach.
This was not an easy task. 5 siblings, their spouses, and 17 grandkids, all having a weekend around October 27th open and available.
I am so so so glad we did it.
She was so happy to have us all there, celebrating her.
I can just see her smile in my mind when I think of her sitting there at a dinner my dad had planned and cooked for all of us.
To think it was her last birthday here on earth, and that just a few days before her next one she would be gone…
It’s part of the unspeakable horror we’ve all tried to come to grips with over the past few days.
Today was one week since she took her last breath in this life.
I am not sure what I wanted to accomplish with this post, except to say that I wish like hell I was going to be calling her in the morning and singing happy birthday to her and waiting for her to get my bouquet of birthday flowers. I would have splurged on the bigger vase this year.
We had plans.
She still had so much life to live.
I cycle back and forth from crying to being angry. To feeling cheated. To feeling angry that my littlest brother got so cheated. I was the lucky one…I got her for the longest.
Four years ago around this time, she drove with me to the courthouse. It was the day my divorce was finalized. A day she never thought one of her kids would have to live through, but she was going to be there for me, in spite of my insistence that I would be ok alone. We compromised and she waited for me at the casino across the street (I live in a real classy county, what can I say?)
And I went into that place as one person, and walked out of it as a different person, but she was still my mommy and I was still her Terra Janice and she handed me a card and a shirt. The card made me cry (as they almost always did), and the shirt said “The Adventure Begins”.
I don’t know what it means that I was wearing that same shirt last Tuesday when I heard my brother say “there she goes, guys” and we knew her spirit was being welcomed into the place she lived her whole life for.
The adventure begins.
This is a shitty adventure and I’d like a refund.
0/10 stars do not recommend.
(I can swear now in my blogs because she isn’t here to tell me not to. And I know my dad is going “but i still am, terra!” and that’s ok because I think I’ve earned a few swear words after this past week. A couple at least.)
There isn’t a manual for this crappy adventure.
There aren’t words for how to gather your own babies and tell them that their beloved memaw won’t ever hug them again, or be here for Christmas. There aren’t words for the pain that sucks the breath out of your lungs when you remember that she’s gone, and you’ll never hear her laugh or her voice again or one of her famous pep talks that left you unsure if you needed to just “buck up” or go ahead and cry it out. There aren’t enough Toastmasters meetings in the world to prepare you to give a speech like the eulogy of your beautiful mommy’s celebration of life service.
People would ask me why I called her Mary Jane but my dad got to be daddy.
It started when I was 16 and she could never keep my friends’ names straight. I asked her if she’d like to be called Mary JUNE and she said sure it wouldn’t bother her – so that’s who she became. At some point I went back to Mary Jane, and since everyone else usually called her Janie, Mary Jane just came to mean “mommy”. And even at 45, she was – IS – still very much my mommy.
And oh how I miss her.
How has it only been one week?
I have so much more I want to say, need to say, need to process through…
But tonight, I’ll just raise a ginger ale toast to the woman who made me who I am today.
I hope your next adventure is just as amazing as this one was, Mary Jane,
I love you so much, and I miss you even more.
I hope you have a happy birthday.
