To everyone else it feels like just another day in March. Title it “hump day” or “mid week” or just a plain old Wednesday. The sun rises and sets. Work shifts start and end. Good mornings and good nights are exchanged. Stop lights turn. Coffee cups empty. Shoes are tied. Papers read. A normal old Wednesday welcomes normal old routines for people all around this big vast universe. Not to me though. This little sticker that has been stuck on my window for the past 90 or so days has been a constant reminder of a looming date that holds a lot more significance than when I need my next oil change. I almost ripped it off a few times because I felt tiny scratches on my heart when I used to look at it. Then I changed my way of thinking. I chose to not glare at it with dread anymore, but rather inhale it’s presence with tiny glances of remembrance, honor, and LOVE.
This day the 12th of March will mark another “year passed” of how long my Mom has been gone. This marks year #2. My broken heart has not broken me. I have survived. My heart kept ticking along even though the heart that brought me into this world had stopped. I have carried on for 730 days and counting since we put her to rest and covered her with the earth. I think about her every single day and every single day I miss her but as the saying goes: Time heals all wounds. My heart used to bleed. Then it bruised. Now it feels like a scar has formed. It still throbs when it beats while that lump gets caught in my throat on the days where I miss her extra hard. Like today. I expect that though, I embrace it like I embrace the memories we have. Pain comes without invitation and I have learned to just breathe it in and exhale it out until it slowly subsides.
It made me realize that this ONE day, this day that brings up thoughts of loss and pain is just a number on a calendar. It doesn’t have to be this day where I sling my head down, bury it in my hands and bawl my eyes out since it is the anniversary of her death. Am I supposed to hurt more on this day than I did yesterday or tomorrow? It hurts all the damn time. It just marks a point with the number thing. I hate numbers. I realize that every day of the year is THAT DAY to someone. Every day is an anniversary to someone's loss of a loved one. I could be buying a coffee and the person handing it to me could have lost a brother 3 years ago from THAT DAY. The mailman could be dropping letters in boxes on THAT DAY where he lost his mother. Every day is a day is day is a day. Truly though. You never know what someone is going through. Especially people like me who tend to dress their sorrow with a veil and only lift it on rare occasions for brief moments less they completely fall apart into a thousand pieces of which cannot be reassembled. It’s much easier to be a brick than a spiderweb.
So, this will always be THAT DAY though. For me. The day where I feel a deep sense of loving acknowledgment for all the wonderful gifts of wisdom and laughter that my Mom blessed me with and then sorrow for all the time that was so wistfully stolen from us. This is HER DAY. I love her with such deep and endless longing that it can only grow stronger as time goes on. I know she feels it as I feel her. We connect on new levels in new ways with new lessons as time goes on. I feel new feelings and discover new mysteries from her departure. It’s magical how love can grow after death. Our eyes may not meet, but our souls? They connect more than I ever deemed possible.
So yes. This is a significant day for me. But numbers on the clock will change, the day will darken and Thursday March 13th will arrive. That will be someone else’s day that makes their heart quiver with remembrance.
The sun will rise. I will stretch my arms, drink my coffee, take the dog out, kiss my son and husband, drive to work, and carry on with life along with the rest of the world. And in another 364 days, MY DAY will come again and the love for my Mother will intertwine itself within the imbedded memories of that toughened heart that beats beneath a beautiful scar.
Then I’ll look at that sticker on my window and hear the voice of my mother echo in that sweet tone that sounds like she’s “trying not to tell me what to do but is still concerned about my choices” voice of hers “Melanie, you should probably schedule an oil change.”
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