One year

Mom died 364 days and two hours ago, give or take.   The whole holiday season was a little odd this year, but not as painful as I had expected.  She had gone into the hospital on Dec. 5, so last year's holiday season was decidedly unfestive.  That Christmas day, the Winemaker and I drove down to her hospital (about 2 hours each way) to sit and hold her hand for awhile.  She was unresponsive, all tubed up after surviving heart surgery.  On New Year's, she was able to communicate, but was still tubed up and our optimism was decidedly guarded. A few days after that, she asked to have the machines disconnected. This year felt wonderfully relaxing in contrast, and I was actually able to enjoy my time off and enjoy being with my family.  Which made me think maybe this whole anniversary thing would go okay.

My plan today (and there was my first problem; the one thing last year seemed determined to teach me was to eliminate the word 'plan' from my vocabulary) was to get up before the Winemaker, so I could do my lesson planning and correcting, then go see my dad before lunch, then have the afternoon and evening free to take a walk, play some board games, read, knit, etc. 

Instead, I slept late.  Really late.  Then I got up and read the end of a book.  Brilliantly, I chose this week to finally read the memoir I've heard is so good.  It's by a middle aged mom who got breast cancer, and in the middle of her treatment, her adored father gets bladder cancer.  Yep.  Truly a brilliant choice.  So then I kind of sat on the couch for awhile.  The Winemaker came by to cuddle with me, and I started crying.  After awhile of that, I decided to make cookies.  I made a terrific new recipe I tried for the first time last month.  But today it didn't turn out right, and I couldn't figure out how to solve it.  My niece stopped by to pick something up around 2:30, and very politely ignored the fact that I was still in my pajamas and robe.  I sat down on the couch again to look at some gardening books, and instead fell asleep for a few hours.  Missed a phone call from my dad, who wanted to know if I've called the Medicaid lady to reschedule (nope) and if I knew that the anniversary of mom's death was tomorrow (yep).  Then I made nachos for dinner and proceeded to overeat.  Now I'm sitting on the couch again.  Did not visit my dad.  Did not do my work.  Did not get any exercise.  I don't think my mother ever had an unproductive day in her life, barring when she was in the hospital.  So that's an extra layer of guilt over the whole wasted day--that I'm incapacitated by grief over someone who would never have been so self indulgent.  

The Winemaker, in addition to giving me lots of hugs today, figured out a solution for my cookies, worked on the car that's been giving me issues lately, and chopped up the Christmas tree to put in the debris bin.  I'm glad someone around here is functioning.   But it's the kind of day when my husband being wonderful makes me want to cry, because someday he'll die, and how will I survive that?  Or I'll go first, and what will he do?  Okay, I take that back--it's the kind of day where these thoughts make me actually cry, not just feel weepy.  I'm really hoping that 180 chaotic sophomores do a good job distracting me tomorrow. 

And after 10 hours of sleep last night and a two hour nap this afternoon, I think I'm heading to bed early.  Grief.  It's tiring.