Three months after my last post on grief, things feel somewhat the same. There are ups and downs: days when I’m feeling relatively good and strong and others when I’m still in disbelief and unable to think about living the rest of my life without my parents around. We’re in the middle of a tough stretch, with Thanksgiving, my mom’s birthday and (now) Christmas within a four-week period; and my work has also been incredibly busy, which hasn’t helped. I’ve come to discover that work stress plus grief aren’t a good mix for me.

Still, the good days are slowly starting to outweigh the bad ones, I think, and my sister and I can do things that we weren’t able to four or five months ago. (She moved into their house at the end of October and is settling in, and we just took care of the last of some financial things.) Q and the girls continue to help me out when I’m having bad moments or days – Zoe and Avery are always there with a hug and an “Are you okay, Mommy?” – and enough sweet things happen that propel me forward.

One such thing: A few weeks ago, Zoe was in the kitchen when we heard a loud noise. Avery went to investigate and reported back to me that I shouldn’t worry, Zoe had only dropped a bunch of (plastic) cups. “And it’s a good thing, Mommy,’ she told me. “When I was talking to Grandma and Grandpa in the shower I had asked them to send me a sign if they could hear me – something like cups dropping.” Somewhat surprised, I asked if she talked to them a lot and she said yes, usually in the shower and about “normal stuff.” Later, I asked if she really thought the cups were from Grandma and Grandpa and she looked at me and said, “Obviously.”

-M

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 23rd, 2018 at 9:45 am and is filed under 99. Two kids - Jan-Dec 18. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.