Time… always an ongoing theme in my house. I’m sure in every house all over the world. As a single parent, it looks above me and feels impossible to lasso…. I wish for more of it and then chase it away…. all in one evening.
I hate that I constantly refer to grief and loss, but, it has changed who I am and still surprises me everyday.
Time has stood still, yet my head spins some days with I get lost inside the dark void of grief.
I realize…. THIS, THIS is it right here… these are my memories and my kids’ memories. Not our next vacation, not the next Holiday…. TODAY. Thursday after dinner and homework, this is the shit they are going to remember.
When my father was dying, in that moment, I was holding his hand and talking to him… just one memory kept flashing in my mind….. it was of my sisters and I playing in the leaves with him one Sunday afternoon in front of our house. I know it was a Sunday, because my father was almost always working Monday through Saturday.
For all I know this memory could have started as a chore he didn’t feel like doing….
Well, that moment of playing in the leaves with my Dad and sisters, turned into a moment where, at the end of my Father’s short life, somehow, in the depths of a brain that didn’t remember what I did hours before, would magically come spewing out of me. That is what I remembered last.
Do I mess up some days and let my unfortunate mix of adolescent and premenopausal hormones get the best of me? …. sure do…. at the end of the day, I try my best to take a step back and remember… it’s not about working until the next time I consciously make a choice to to do “something fun” with my kids. Because in all honestly, 99% of the time, when I make those choices, it almost never pans out how I envisioned.
Until then, I will try and find fun with my kids in going to the post office, folding laundry, making dinner… all of the things that would typically take time away from them. One of those everyday moments could become their most precious memory of me.
Oh, the pressure.
mayabelle.love 