One of the hardest parts about losing Kirsten has been the loss of my job as her mother. Like a pink slip after years of faithful work with no performance review, no explanation or retirement benefits… just the end.
I’m not needed to wake her up because she has somehow slept through her ridiculously loud alarm clock, not needed for writing excuse notes when she’s missed first period, not needed for calling doctor’s offices or hair salons to make her appointments for her.
She doesn’t need to borrow my favorite dress or necklace, she doesn’t need me to make her coffee with cream and sugar every morning and she doesn’t need me to take her on expensive shopping trips to the mall where we would share a dressing room at Victoria’s Secret or Hollister.
No glass of water (without ice) to get at bedtime, no writing projects to help with, no need to stand watch outside a bathroom stall door because she wanted to be alerted if someone came in.
Instead, I make up things to do for her.
I write to her in pretty journals every night (she always loved everything to be pretty), I light scented candles (she always loved scent and always smelled so good), I plant flowers and trees (pink, the color I associate with her), I frame pictures of her (they are everywhere), I document and save everything about her life (lest I forget a single thing), I think of her (constantly), I write this blog.
These things are the closest substitute I can find for the job I used to have. They make me feel like I’m doing something. The way I used to be needed to do things. And it is the labor of them that is the reward.
They are outlets for a love that has nowhere to go.
“Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night.”
~Edna St. Vincent Millay
"They are outlets for a love that has no where to go."
ReplyDeleteThat is very beautiful and it explains perfectly the way that I feel.
I love you, mommabear.