Vacationing different

The last time I saw my mom, would be the last time I saw my mom alive and well. Little did I know that the final time I would lay eyes on her would be to say our final goodbyes. Now to be fair and honest, no one knows if the last time you will see your loved one is the last time you will see your loved one. Which is why we are to take no day or person for granted. From September to as recent as this past February my sister and I have packed up and taken day trips down 220 to our hometown to handle what we call “mama business.” Let me tell you, it has pulled on my emotional, physical, and mental capacity not to mention my faith as I try hard not to take her death personal. I tell myself as bad as it hurts that it was between her and God and she was just on loan to us until He required her presence with Him. As often as we can each time we take that drive we visit her grave. No matter how many times I see it (the grave that is) and even as I think back to being there when she took her last breath, I still can’t wrap my head or heart around the fact that in the natural I am a motherless child.

Although I am almost 43 years old, I feel like a kid or a lost teenager as it relates to the loss of my mother. Life as I know it is now forever changed and different. Not to mention some of my own struggles within myself just from everyday life. I mean I am am mom of three, a wife and a Nona. I struggle with good and bad days health wise and other life moments. But any way, like I stated, ever since September we have been traveling up and down that highway filled with all kinds of heavy heartache and emotion. Sure we see and love on our dad while we are there but it’s not like mama. With all the stresses going on and the swallowing of emotions trying to push through and be what is needed for my own children and husband we agreed that it was time for us as a family to take a break from our world for a few days. I make the joke that I am a woman on edge. The day I realized that I needed to take a mental break was a few weeks back; I was headed to Wal-Mart in need of something and it was raining, my youngest two had called me to argue on the phone in my ear. A truck driver tries to speed past me very reckless as my immediate thought was “Oh dear God please don’t let me get pushed off this highway and caught between this guardrail and this truck. Let the trucker see me.

Well God answered that prayer because the trucker rolled down his window and gave me the finger. I never give people the finger when I am driving stuff like that doesn’t bother me, but that day he caught the finger back and many not so nice words that I am trying to stop using. I was missing my mom and the week and day had just started. It wasn’t even ten o’clock. I had been in Monday morning prayer but that all flew out the window when ole trucker dude shot me the bird. I lost it. I repented but still. So I called my husband and told him we needed a break. He checked his schedule and was happy to oblige me. This past weekend, my husband and I packed up the middle and youngest child and headed down that same highway 220 towards the beach. Anytime I took this trip, we always allotted time to visit mama’s and enjoy her for a while before we got back on the road going or coming from the beach and depending on how many days we stayed, we could always count on daddy and mama to “crash” our trip and spend the day with us no matter where on the coast we were. It was our “THING.” This time, I had to remind myself that we could no longer stop at the house that she made a home for us because it was under contract to be sold. My dad was already at the store when I called him, so we just met him there and he talked with the girls for a while and we headed on to the beach. I passed what used to be our mother’s home to see the makings of it being the home of someone else. My heart sank for a moment. We ventured off to the beach and making sure we followed ALL SAFETY PRECAUTIONS we had a very nice and much needed time together. My dad kept the tradition alive and came and spent the day with us, just as he and mama did when she was alive. We did this for ten years. It was not a lot of people down there and the weather was nice for end of winter. On our way back, I reminded Shawn that since we didn’t get a chance to visit my mom’s grave on the ride going, I had to make sure I saw it own the way back. We stopped in again and met daddy at the store, he was out just riding. I said my goodbyes to him with the anticipation of going to visit my mother’s grave. I had made this trip a dozen times since September, but this time seemed to be just as hard as the initial one. My heart became heavy again and the closer we got; I felt a quiet unnerving come over me. When we pulled up to the graveyard I felt almost paralyzed like I just wanted to roll down the window and wave to her because I wasn’t sure my legs would be strong enough to carry me.

I mustered up the strength to get out of the car and the closer I got to her grave the freer the tears flowed. Shawn put his arm around me, and we stood at the head of her grave. I stood there with minimal words wiping my tears with the harsh reality that every time I traveled this road either coming or going at some point I was gonna wind up there looking at that place in the ground that housed the body of one of the best parts of me. Some people visit the graves of their loved ones to help them come to terms that the person is no longer on earth with them. In time they may stop because of whatever reason. I know that it is just her shell that is planted in the ground but even as I look at it and as I was there when everything transpired, this is hard to accept but it is the reality in which I live in daily and try and come to grips with. Mama was a part of our traveling; she went with us. We at least tried to vacation with her once and sometimes twice a year. Now all of that is no longer. I can’t pick up the phone and hear her voice as we make plans to spend a few days off the grid to enjoy each other. I won’t be able to take pictures and forward them to her as she looks at it then says, “send it to me.” I would be able to send her pictures of her grandkids and respond to her twenty-one questions about what they are doing and why. But what I do know and have to face is losing her makes my life forever changed and my family and I will be vacationing different.