July 2012 - Three years later

I can already feel the uncomfortable-ness setting in.  She's been popping up in my dreams the last couple of nights.


Three years ago tomorrow (approx 3AM 07/09/09), my world turned upside down.  I woke up, got ready for work, and mom didn't show up.  I tried calling, nothing.  Then my mom's number called the house.  I picked up, expecting her to say she over-slept, and instead heard from my mom's husband that she was cold and he couldn't wake her up.


The next few hours consisted of getting someone to watch the boys, getting hubby to come home, driving the longest drive of my life to her house, arriving to find her dead.  Watching "him" walk out crying, saying she's gone, blowing past him to run up the stairs and seeing her on the floor.  


Touching her, her feeling warm body (from liquids paramedics put into her), saying "no, stop messing around mom, wake up!"


Realizing she wasn't going to wake up. That this house, usually full of my mother's overwhelming presence, her laugh, her treading on the floors, wasn't going to happen again.


Trying to figure out what to do about the kids, helping "him" make funeral arrangements, writing the funeral service. Trying to figure out how I was going to live without her.  


Three years later, it's easier.  


I can think about her, without turning into a blubbery mess.  I can think about the fun I had with her, think about how much she loved her grandsons, think about how much I loved her and she loved us.  


I realized, finally, that family is the most important thing in the world.  That taking care of my kids are more important than my job.  That the career I thought was so important to me, was crap compared to life without my family.


Tomorrow I wake up, trying not to think about the timeline of events that morning.  Get the boys ready, and take them to see their grandmother at her grave.  We'll see how it goes for the boys, how they'll cope.