My Mom, 1941-2010

Not much has changed in my day to day life, hence not much blogging. Same old, same old. Mostly sexless marriage (May 2009 was the last time. Almost 2 years.). Same adorable, but aggravating kids, only bigger.

Well, there was one big change.

My mom died.

No one was expecting it and we're still taking it hard. She died on July 2. Talking to my dad one moment, saying something didn't feel right, and dead the next. Truly it was that fast. She had an abdominal aortic aneurysm and it burst. When that happens, one bleeds out very, very fast.

Of course my dad has had the hardest time, though he tries not to let it show. He's not one to sit around dwelling on things or feeling sorry for himself. But he admits he cries at least once every day still. He'll hear something or think of something and immediately think "I've got to tell Jan that" and then he remembers and his heart is broken all over again. He never, ever expected to survive Mom. Dad is 6 years older and continues to smoke despite having already had a triple bypass and carotid artery disease. His whole life, especially all his retirement planning, involved planning for Mom to carry on without him. It's been all about making sure she would be okay.

But she died as she would have wanted, if not WHEN she would have wanted. Mom's deepest fears were a lingering illness and being in pain. Both her parents suffered greatly before they died and she really, really wanted to avoid that. She got her wish. She beat colon cancer and uterine cancer (cancer-free 17 years) and in the end it was high blood pressure, leading to the aneurysm, that got her. But she didn't suffer and for that I rejoice.

Mostly though, I just miss my mommy.

To blog is a self-invasion of privacy