This past Sunday was Easter, and I am grateful for Jesus rising from the dead. Maybe it was a coincidence that I had a dream Easter morning about my mom waking up from the dead. I tend to over think everything and this dream was no different. Was this dream some sort of message affirming Christ's Resurrection, or just my longing to see my mom. I am thankful that I had a chance to see her, and feel her in a dream that was so vivid that when I awoke all I wanted was to be back with her. Whatever the message... or not, I am happy that I had an opportunity to visit with her even if it was only a dream.
Easter was uneventful for our family, I think we are still trying to come to grip with the new dynamic of how we work. With Rhonda on bed rest, Melissa thought it would be nice to include her in some sort of get together. So Saturday afternoon we all went to Rhonda's for a couple of hours and had an early dinner, and let the kids hunt eggs in the backyard. We were home by 8:15 which was fine by me because I was feeling like crap and Alex was too.
Easter Sunday we went to church, where our music minister Sharon had decided to try something new with all of the songs we normally sing on Easter, we hope she doesn't make the same mistake next year. Mass was long as it always is on Easter, and crowded with families in town for the holiday and kids in from college, as well as the Chreasters (those who only come on holidays, but at least they come). Communion was twice as long and Kathryn was getting tired of being cramped in the pew, and Alex's cheeks had become flushed with fever. Easter was not what we had hoped it would be.
Fast forward to yesterday, when we finally received the autopsy report that we had been waiting on since my mom's death. The results reopened the hurt and pain of losing her all over again. We can't help but rack our brains if we made the right decision to take her off life support, if we only waited a few more weeks. We will never know because we obviously can't go back. I am not sure I will ever get over her death. I feel so sad for my mom, she would have wanted to be here, I know it. If only we knew she was hurt then maybe she would still be here, or maybe if the doctors would not have dismissed the knot on her neck, maybe things would have been different. My family has been torn apart and the guilt of feeling somehow responsible for her death has taken a toll on us all. Daddy is far from OK, he misses his life companion and love, and with the results of the autopsy he is racking his brain trying to figure out how and when the injury occurred, and maybe if he would have known or maybe he missed some clue that something was wrong. We have all been doing this since that morning on January 5 that she went into the hospital. With all that we are grappling with my grandfather seems to have given up on life and has spent the past month in and out of the hospital and rehabilitation center. He has had weakness, internal bleeding, congestive heart failure, and now an enlarged prostate. Our family seems to be crumbling around the edges. And on top of all of that my mom's mom whom is hard to swallow anyway has ranted about how it is my father's fault for my mom's death. I know she is old and demented but it cuts all the same and makes it very hard for me to continue a relationship with her that I have continued because I know how much it meant to my mom. Regardless of what she says or how she acts (as crazy as she can seem) she is the mother of my mom. My mom loved her even though she made it clear that her only son, my mom's brother was the favorite all because he was blessed (in her eyes) to have a penis, and would carry on the Wilhite name. Of course we will not talk of the way she was treated by her parents growing up or that my mom once told me that her dad came close to beating her in the face for interfering with a fight between him and her brother. And I won't mention that when my grandmother talks about what a hard worker my mom was, and was from the moment she finished high school. I won't say it was because she had to pay rent on a room she shared with two sisters if she wanted to stay in the house. Nor will I mention that when it came to helping us with our homework my mom always said to ask our dad because she didn't feel smart enough to help, in her eyes she always seem to feel less than worthy when that was not true at all. In the house my mom grew up the fact that she was a female meant that she and her sisters where somehow less worthy in the eyes of their parents, they were to submit to the males in the family and were not equal. No matter that my uncle could do no wrong in their eyes. I know that the childhood of both of my grandparents contributed to the parents/grandparents they became. I know that my grandparents loved all four of their children as best they could, so in the end that is the credit I can give my grandmother.
Love is unconditional, and my mom and dad taught me that. I was not an easy child, adolescent, teen, or adult. I am hot and cold with little to no middle ground, and by being my mother and weathering some of the battles and emotions that come with being close to me my mother and father should qualify as saints. I was blessed with a family that loved without question, and as twisted as my grandmother may seem she is still my grandmother and I love her no matter how hurtful she can be at times, because I know she loves me.
My mom was beautiful, loving, kind, sweet, funny, smart, compassionate reliable, christian, nurturing and forgiving. She was not perfect, and never claimed to be but she was a perfect fit in to our lives and will be forever missed, and we will never understand the reason for her death while we are on this earth. I am thankful she was my mom and will miss her every day, for me, my dad, my sisters, my children, my nephews and nieces, my grandmother, my aunts, my cousins, even my uncle, and for my dad's family who she had embraced as her own.
