We survived the first year

Today marks the first anniversary of my mom's death.

The recap can be found here:
http://afloridianinutah.blogspot.com/2011/08/saturday-august-20-2011.html

We made it through everyone's birthday, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, Valentine's Day, parent's anniversary, Easter, Mother's Day, Memorial Day, Father's Day, the Fourth of July, and Pioneer Day.

We had two graduations for Bachelor's Degrees. One graduation for an Associate's Degree. One graduation for a High School Diploma.

We had one kid become a teenager. One kid become an adult.

We had a new baby.

We had a wedding.

Yesterday, my brother blessed his new baby girl, Alisa Laura, and then we went to the cemetery to pay respects to our mom.

After visiting the cemetery, we all went up to Dad's house where the Florida sisters called in on Google+ and we had a "family group therapy session". Basically, our therapist father, led us through grief counseling while battling grief himself.  He called on us in random order to talk about how this year's big events have gone for each of us and how we felt about not having Mom there for any of them. Those who graduated felt guilt for having achieved that goal while Mom came oh so close to getting her AA, but never got it (she was supposed to graduate in December of 2010-- three months after she was diagnosed with cancer). The thirteen year old talked about how he missed having his mom around to help him with homework and talk to him. The eighteen year old talked about coming home from school to her sisters for a while and how, while she loves us, we're not Mom. Everyone else talked about how we'd call her just to talk, almost everyday and how getting used to not calling her has been really hard.

This little session went on for a couple of hours, I think. We passed the Kleenex around and cried. We laughed when someone mentioned something silly about her. We cried as Dad cried when he said that listening to us made him grateful that we had a mom. He grew up in a single parent home with him mom working all the time and he had it as a goal that his children would have a stay at home mom to take care of them. He said that he was grateful that we all had the type of mom he always wanted his children to have: someone who taught us, encouraged us, hugged us, helped us with sports and music lessons and everything else we wanted to do and who loved us.

To wrap up, Dad had us all tell everyone something we learned from her life. Our brother talked about how organized she was, keeping up with everyone, exercising, and always having dinner ready by 6pm. Someone else mentioned how she was always grateful for nature and always commented on how beautiful the flowers were or how blue the sky was. Another talked about how she was nice to people, unconditionally. Another, how she always read her scriptures. Someone else talked about how she was a hard-worker and no matter challenge she faced, she always believed it could be done by trying and having a positive attitude. I mentioned how she always stood up for what she thought was right, even if it meant offending someone.

It's been a really hard year, full of lots and lots and lots of tears. As the oldest sibling, I can't imagine being 13 and not having my mom around to talk about middle school with. I can't even fathom going to high school graduation, or college graduation, without having my mom there to hug me and tell he how proud she is. Or go off to college as the twenty year old is  doing (she's transferring to BYU from Weber this week) without my mom to help pick out new towels and give me advice on how to cook for myself.

As for myself, I struggled getting engaged and planning a wedding without my mom's help. I can't even count how many times I complained to M that "if Mom were here, this would be so much easier!" At least, now, I know what it's like to do a wedding without her, and now when the other three sisters get married, I'll know better what to do for them.

Last night was very cathartic for me. I realized that with all the major life events that happened to everyone, life does go on. Good things keep happening. Joy can be found anywhere and any time. We can do hard things, even the very things you think are impossible one day, someday,  you'll turn around and realize you survived.


(to remember last August, here is the link... scroll to the bottom and read upwards to get the in-order play by play... it's sad, so you might want Kleenex near by)
http://afloridianinutah.blogspot.com/2011_08_01_archive.html