A Year Later

Today marks a year. I'm looking out the same window I was looking out of when my dad called me. He tried not to cry. I think all he could say was "Barrie, it's your mother..." The only difference is that it's raining. It feels appropriate, so thank you universe. Thank you for understanding that a sunny day would be too much of a contrast to my sadness. 

I've thought a lot about what is the appropriate thing to say on this day. And then I realized that focusing on what's appropriate is the opposite of what's appropriate. I can't give you the "everything happens for a reason, because if this never happened I wouldn't know _____." That would be insincere. Of course I've learned a lot, I've found strength I never knew I had, I've felt love I never knew was there, I've made life a daily focus...you know, the things people learn and then say and you read but don't actually feel until this kind of shit happens. But that's a good thing. And I DO sincerely mean that. People wouldn't live life and take the risks they do if they felt those lessons too early.  The person you are before those lessons will always be different from the person you are after those lessons, but you need to experience both to appreciate the other.

Today, all I can really think about is how much I love my mom. How much I love being her daughter. How much I love that she did foreign country-themed weeks growing up and how much I love that she let me put hieroglyphics on the wall during "Egypt week," how much I love that she let me throw rotten fruit out the car window when I didn't get into the ballet, how much I love she got arrested for painting flowers on the neighborhood fire hydrant during a sleepover, how much I love that she dressed up in feathers and fake eyelashes with me for the Cher concert, how much I love that she drove me back and forth from Chicago to Cincinnati every weekend for a year, how much I love that she planted flowers in her friends yards in the middle of the night as a birthday surprise.... how much I love that I still have her. 

Old me loved my mom, but new me loves her more.