Mommy Moments

So I developed a bulls eye rash from a tick bite today, living in Loudoun County you know thats never a good thing. But Before everybody starts sending me Lyme’s Disease literature let me say I have already made an appt with my Dr. to get on the antibiotic regimen and let me assure you I am fortunate that she is actually one of the leading Dr.’s in the Country on this topic. If it develops into anything I’ll let you all know but for now its 3 weeks of antibiotics for me (or whatever the latest protocol is).

But the reason for my writing today isn’t to tell you my health concerns but talk about my total break down this morning after I found the Bullseye. You see this is one of those Mommy Moments, one of those moments where I would text mom and tell her what I found. She’d make a joke, then ask me to send a picture, then say yea that doesn’t look good…LOL! Then she’d tell me to make an appt. with Dr. Walsh and ask me if I wanted her to go with me, which I’d say no I’d be fine. Then she’d text Shawn to check on my state of mind and probably show up anyway. Then she’d go back to sending me a bunch of silly GIF’s about ticks and tell me it was all gonna be fine. And then I’d feel fine because she told me it would be okay.

So with all that you can probably understand my break down. I have none of that today! I actually considered just texting her anyway (until this moment I never understood when people said they did stuff like that when a loved one passed), but then I remembered I shut her phone off and I’d probably get some message back saying it didn’t go through and that wouldn’t be good either.

Damn I miss my Mommy!

Traditions

So the day is finally here, I’ve been kinda dreading this for about a month. Well at least since the Easter stuff moved off the shelves and the Mother’s Day cards starting popping up at the grocery store and the jewelry and flower commercials started playing on TV. I usually don’t pay attention to that stuff cause my mom and I always joked about how commercialized Mother’s Day among other “Hallmark Holidays” had become, but this year for obvious reasons I feel like I’ve noticed a lot more. And man no wonder people feel pressured to give Mom the perfect gift. LOL!

Its really not Mother’s Day itself that is the issue today. I’m pretty confident my mom knew how much I loved her all year round so we never made a big deal of the fact that it was Mother’s Day. But we did take advantage of being able to spend the day together and we always did the same thing on Mother’s Day. So here is where my issue today lies, it is more about the traditions my mom and I had formed over the years rather then the day itself and realizing that we will no longer be sharing those traditions together.

Mother’s Day feels like the start of “Tradition Season” for me. Both mom and I are kinda home bodies and neither of us loves the Winter ( I think we both have a little of that Seasonal depression thing going on…we always said we were going to get one of those special lamps). So throughout the Winter months, like a lot of people, we spent more time in doors at our perspective homes then having adventures. But as Spring rolls around this year, I’m reminded of all the things that we always counted on doing together when the weather got warmer. Mom and I are both creatures of habit so where we were always willing to try something new, doing our usual was something we always looked forward to and cherished.

A few weeks ago Leesburg had its Annual Flower and Garden Show. That event was like the kick off of “Things” we always did together. She’d come to the house and we’d hop in one car and head down together. We’d hit the food trucks first and figure out what “carnival type” food we’d share. Fresh Lemonade was always on the list and at some point we’d get a funnel cake or kettle corn or whatever new trendy food item was speaking to us. Always swearing after we would never eat that again cause our bellies hurt…yet the very next year (or event) we always would do it all over again. Then we’d poke around all the stalls and maybe buy a few things but more often we collected cards of things we loved and couldn’t afford and talked about how “when we won the lottery” we’d buy them for each other. Mom would take a bunch of photos and then document the whole thing on Facebook…man I miss those posts.

So today its all about Crabs. Mom and I loved picking crabs! So every Mother’s Day I’d take mom out to Lowry’s in Hamilton and we’d get a dozen or so crabs and we’d sit there for several hours picking crabs, eating hush puppies and talking about all the events, festivals, shows, etc. we were going to hit up throughout the Summer. We always talked about bucket list trips we were going to take or plans we had for my garden or house. After our free ice cream cone, we’d roll out of there way to full and go to the nursery to get Gerber Daisies to plant in my front pots and whatever other plants spoke to us. Mom always forced me to wait till Mother’s Day to start planting cause she said if I planted sooner I’d regret it because I’d lose the plants to a late frost (and I did many times when I wouldn’t listen to her, Mother always knows Best).

Thank goodness for Shawn. He gladly took me to the Garden Show a few weeks ago and he patiently sat while I picked crabs today. And I know the next thing that pops up he will happily be my partner for that too. He has been so good through all this while I try to navigate my emotions and what I need to do to get through the day or moment. All the while he is trying to manage his own grief too.

Damn I miss her! Remember the part where I said I was a creature of habit! Mom and I had our “ways” of doing things and I feel super robbed right now of those moments. I know I am lucky, I have memories, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I feel like screaming like a 4 year old that “Life isn’t fair!”

remembers

Day One

I know I haven’t written in awhile. A friend asked me if I struggle with content, HA HA HA ..ummm no, I have lots of content. I struggle with time (don’t we all). I’ve always had my hands in a lot of things but now I feel like I have thrown myself into work cause its easier to concentrate on that then think about her. And that’s what I’d do if I had idle time, I’d think about her and go through the stages of grief. Right now I prefer to live in the fantasy world of denial where I just sit and wait for her to come through the front door after some fantastic bucket list trip she took (Maine or Alaska probably), bearing gifts and yelling to Smudge “Hey Girlfriend”!

But today I can’t do that. Today is a day I’ve known was coming and a day I’ve been dreading probably more then any other day since she passed.

Before I go on I have some things I want to clear up right now. Honestly, I didn’t think I’d have to but some people felt it necessary to share their opinions with me about my writings about my mom. My mom was an Alcoholic and I am the daughter of an Alcoholic. Actually I’m the daughter of two alcoholics and generations of alcoholics prior to them but talking about my Dad is definetely for a different day and shoot maybe a different blog. My mom was an alcoholic my whole life. Sometimes she was sober (she even went 12 years prior to the last time she fell off the wagon), but she was still an Alcoholic and even when she was sober I always waited for her to not be. That is till 6 years ago. 6 years ago was different. 6 years ago she checked into EdgeHill in Winchester and both of our lives became different. She became the authentic woman she always wanted to be and I became the daughter that didn’t worry about when she might take another drink and leave me to become the mom again.

The things I want to clear up are that by telling my moms story and my story ultimately, I am not disrespecting her or airing her dirty laundry (or breaking HIPA laws which some bat shit crazy lady tried to tell me I did). If you knew my mother at all you would know she was open about her journey to sobriety (she was actually writing her own book, which I found when going through her things) and was very active to help others down their own path to sobriety. I have been shocked by the nasty things a few people have written to me, trying to tell me I was a horrible disrepectful daughter and my mom would be horrified to read what I was telling the world about her. But as always the good has far exceeded the bad so I’m learning to hit that “unfriend Button” a little more freely.

So back to today…Today would have been her 6 year Anniversary of being Sober. Today would have been a big day! 6 years ago today I drove her out to Winchester with some clothes and toiletries and dropped her off at Rehab and then drove back to Leesburg sobbing uncontrolably. You see I had horrible guilt because she said she wanted to change her mind ( I had actually picked her up from the hospital where I had to medically detox her first cause if she had gone cold turkey she could have died), she promised she could do it on her own again, she promised to not let me down again. But much like an episode of Intervention I had to tell her she had to follow through and go or I was going to have to walk away from her. I had to do the hardest thing I have ever had to do: I basically made my mom choose between me and alcohol (thank God this time she chose me). While driving home I had no idea what the future would hold, I had no idea if this time it would stick (honestly I didn’t think it would), I had no idea that this day would actually end up being the first day of having the mother/daughter relationship we both always wanted.

So today is a day to Celebrate (and I will as I go to her “Home Group” Meeting tonight), but it also is a day where I feel so robbed. We had so many plans, so many things we wanted to do (like Maine and Alaska) and I’m still in such shock that we won’t be doing them. So before I go out to Winchester and spend time with some of those people who helped her 6 years ago and whom she helped as well, I think I’ll go back to my land of Denial and wait for her to come through that door.

Another First….Valentines Day!

OK for some this one might not seem like a big deal in the firsts department and really on the grand sceme of things I was kinda surprised how hard today hit me too. Maybe it hit me hard because I’m getting closer to wrapping things up…. Yesterday I went to the Courthouse and was named Administrator of her Estate (which means I can now take care of those stupid car people), my To Do List for her is getting shorter, and the house is coming along in terms of getting it packed up (except for The Ear…oh wait till I get to The Ear story). Things are starting to feel much more final and I’d be lying if I didn’t confess without a Mom To Do List I worry I might forget about her for a day. And the thought of that starts the waterworks again.

But as I reflected about why today was so hard and I shared my thoughts with my Inner Circle about missing her today somebody pointed out that from their perspective my Mom was big on holidays with me and that they thought she used them as an opportunity to show me how much she loved and appreciated me. Well, that hit me like a ton of bricks and as I thought about it, that statement seems pretty spot on. Especially when you factor in that my Love Language is Giving Gifts (If you aren’t familiar with Love Languages I recommend you Google it after you are done reading this, trust me its eye opening).

She really was the original Best Gift Giver and I’m pretty sure Gift Giving is my Love Language cause of her. Like me, whenever she was anywhere and she saw something that reminded her of somebody she always bought it so she’d have it for that special time when she needed it for them. Maybe that was for a Birthday or Holiday, but more often then not it was just because she wanted them to know she was thinking of them and she knew it would brighten a day. I remember in October of this past year her declaring she was done with her Christmas Shopping because she had been shopping throughout the year. BTW, I know that was a lie cause I didn’t even make my Birthday/Christmas List (yes, I still make a list and hang it on the fridge) till Thanksgiving and there was stuff on my list she got me. So Ha Mom, bet you thought I didn’t put two and two together LOL!

I think the other reason today was hard was because her and I were so much alike, we had so many similar views and we were always talking and texting every day about stuff. On a day like today we would have discussed how ridiculous it is that flowers cost so much on Valentines Day and how everybody should buy flowers at Costco, we would have talked about the cards we almost bought each other, we would have sent each other pictures of what cool trends were happening for Valentines, and we would have laughed at the over the top gestures of love we saw on Facebook . We also would have both said we shouldn’t have eaten the chocolate Shawn gave us but we’d get back on our diets tomorrow, LOL. You see she wasn’t just my mom and we didn’t just talk once a day to check in, she was my Best Friend and we talked all day every day about everything and thats why today and everyday seems just so hard. Because I no longer have that one person in my life I can talk to about EVERYTHING!

So here I am on my First Valentines Day without her thinking what is the lesson I take away from today what would she want me to remember or share with the world as I write this. And I think it all just leads back to what Valentine’s Day was for her, a day to make sure the ones you love know you love them.

This Cake is For You!

I never knew how she did it, how she kept up with all the people. How she managed to make every single person she was talking to feel as if they were her Best Friend. I think we touched on this before, but it’s true and to me its mind blowing. After she passed away I had so many people reach out to me saying they communicated with her every day and how much they were going to miss those text messages from her. And I’m not just talking one or two people which in my mind would seem reasonable, but I’m talking dozens. And these weren’t group messages or cut and paste the same thing to each person. These were true genuine, authentic (there’s that word again) conversations. I know cause I had them with her….every day!

At some point in her recovery she must have subscribed to the Rachel Hollis line of thinking or whomever came up with the idea prior to Rachel Hollis (BTW, If you haven’t read Girl Wash Your Face go order it now….well unless your a man then don’t but if you are a man you could subscribe to her husbands Pod Cast, he is pretty good too). That is get up an hour early and do something for you. Go to the gym, write in your journal, read…something, anything, but it has to be you time. She did that. She got up early, got her coffee, got on the couch with Bob and started in with the messages. For those of you that got them you know what I’m talking about. She was checking in on people, sending inspirational quotes, sharing an article and then there were the cake pictures.

Every day she checked her FaceBook Events page and posted Birthday cake Pictures on her friends FaceBook Walls. While the rest of sent generic Happy Birthday Messages she would search out a picture of a cake that made her think of you and post it on your wall. If your Facebook Page was set to private she sent it to you through messenger or text, but she made sure people got them and she wanted them to know she was thinking of them on their special day. She did this every day and it blows my mind.

So those of you that know her know why I’m writing this today. Those that don’t or don’t know her well are about to find out. Today is Patti’s Birthday. She would have been 73 today. Today I and many others would have posted Birthday Cake pictures for her on her Facebook Page. Today we would have celebrated her because it was her special day! And now, well you know the now.

I can’t write much more today because I really can’t do hard today. It’s gonna be a hard enough day as it is so I’m gonna end this post. But before I do, do something for me today. Do something in honor of Patti. Checkout your friends list and see who is having a Birthday today (or yesterday or tomorrow if you don’t have somebody today), find a picture of a cake on google that reminds you of them and send it to them and see what happens, see the response. It really is lovely!

Oh and Patti Best, my amazing mother this cake is for you!

I Gotta Try!

So I declared it this morning… I’m gonna start knitting or at least try to learn. I know I know, I have enough on my plate but something is saying I need to do this. And a few of you know I may have tried learning to knit on a bus trip to NYC a few years ago and I wasn’t super successful at it. In fact the scarf/blanket/whatever it was suppossed to be that I had started, I showed my mom and told her when I was done I was going to give it to her. She smiled in her “oh dear that is so sweet” kinda way (you know the I’m being polite but how do I tell you this…) and said oh no you should keep it, its your first one. LOL, my feelings weren’t even hurt that she thought it was a big disaster cause I totally knew it was one too. Plus she probably also knew I’d decide knitting wasn’t my thing (I didn’t have the patience for it), which of course I did pretty shortly after starting that whatever you want to call it. To this day that project is still sitting in a Jeffrey Gale basket in my family room along with the last knitting piece she was working on when she died and some bits of random balls of yarn from her past pieces and a ball of yarn that was at her house that just spoke to me. Hmmm maybe it spoke to me cause it wants me to knit it into something beautiful some day.

But as usual I’m getting a little off track. The point is I feel like I need to knit, to continue her legacy some how. I don’t know what it is I just want to make beautiful things like she did and put little inspirational tags on them that make people happy and inspire them. Its crazy her knitting had such an impact on so many. Her pieces were amazing and unique but it was those darn tags that really did it. Somehow she knew just the perfect little inspirational tag to attach to each of her pieces and somehow those pieces and those tags got to just the right person at just the right time they needed it. I don’t want the world to lose that, I want everybody to have a knitted piece with just the right tag.

She started knitting later in life….well at least I think she did. I don’t remember her knitting when I was younger or maybe if she did it wasn’t like the way she knits now (or did, ugh my tenses will never be right talking about her so don’t critic the grammer of all this, please). The point is, if she could start later in life then I don’t see why I can’t start later too. Besides, I have the desire now, a reason so to speak…Plus I have the amazing “Sock Sisters” ( I’ll tell you more about these woman later, but they were moms knitting posse and they are just the best) who are willing to help me so I’m going to have not necesaarily the Yoda I really want teaching me but some pretty good Jedi Knitting Masters nonetheless to help me. So that’s it, I’ve declared it…its out in the universe, so now I gotta do it or at least try. She’d want me to at least try!

yoda

I Dreamed About Her Last Night

People kept telling me she’d visit me in my dreams. It’d been 43 days and nothing. I’d started to believe people just say stuff to try and make you feel better. In a way I’d started to get angry. Why wasn’t she visiting me in my dreams? Between this and the not her password blog you are probably thinking I sound like a spoiled 5 year old. When it came to my mom I kinda was a spoiled 5 year old to be honest. I know without a doubt how much she loved me!

Before I tell you about my dream let me back up. Yesterday was a really hard day. I mean really hard! I hit a brick wall yesterday: the things I have left to do are way to overwhelming and emotional for me to deal with. I feel paralyzed if I’m being honest. To start, I got a semi nasty letter from the bank that holds her car loan that requires me to go to court and be named the Executor of her Estate just to get them to fricking talk to me on the phone about what to do. Hello people I’m grieving and trying to keep my head above water just tell me my options. At one point I think I screamed to nobody at all “just come Repo the damn thing its not like its going to hurt her credit!” I won’t go into all the other things I still have left but lets just say its all the hard stuff and I’m not coping well. I literally stood in the bathroom and sobbed before I headed into the office yesterday.

Poor Shawn he is being as supportive as he can, but I just don’t think he knows what to do with me when I’m at that point. He is kinda used to me having my shit together and I just don’t. The great thing about Shawn though, is he is like what I imagine having a Jewish Grandmother would be like….he just keeps cooking me food and feeding me. I’ll have gained 50 lbs when this is all said and done but since he’ll be the cause of it I’m pretty sure he won’t leave me LOL.

So after my melt down in the morning, I stuffed all my feelings down deep like my mother always taught me to do then went to work and buried myself in processes and procedures, you know those mind numbing things. But when I got home from work I locked myself in the bathroom for about 30 minutes and got in the shower and cried and cried and cried. I figured in the shower, Shawn wouldn’t hear me and he wouldn’t worry about me. It wasn’t a good moment people, it was first time in my life I think I fully understood what depression felt like, I understood people who are depressed feeling Dispair, I understood feeling literally hopeless. I stood there in the shower and felt hopeless then I got out and went and ate all the things Shawn had been cooking in the kitchen all day and went to bed. And then she came for a visit.

It was different then I thought it would be….I thought she’d like come and talk to me and tell me I’ll be ok and I was handling things and I’d get through it and maybe even she was sorry she left me with all this shit to handle. But that wasn’t how it was at all. So this is how it was: I was at Noah’s salon getting my haircut and it was me, Noah and James. Sidenote: For those of you who don’t know who Noah is he is my mom’s boss and is my hair stylist and my friend and like a brother to me. He is also married to James who is also amazing and is like a brother to me. In comes mom strolling in mumbling her credit cards won’t work wearing this old jean shirt that Shawn and I had cut the looney tunes patch off the back of when we cleaned out her closet so I could put the patch on something else (there is a whole story about the shirt, but just know it was special and I’ll get t that story another day). I was like mom what are you doing here and she looked at me like I was crazy cause duh she worked there. I had to tell her she was dead which of course she told me she wasn’t and then I told her that her shirt had a hole in the back where I cut the patch out which annoyed her because why would I do that and then I explained to her why her cards didn’t work cause I cancelled them and again the why would you do that are you crazy look. Essentially she made me believe she wasn’t dead but had just been gone but of course didn’t remember where she had been. Then I woke up!

I talked to a friend today about my dream and she said “that doesn’t sound like a happy dream” and it wasn’t, but it wasn’t sad either. Just very mom like is all I can say (for those who knew her, I know you know what I’m talking about). It was very “why are you guys all moping about, hello I am here” This friend also said she found it interesting mom showed up on a night when I had a really rough day. My friend said this and I quote “I can see her saying to the person on the next cloud….I’m going to have to go down there and straighten her out…”

I don’t think any closure really came from this dream and I really don’t know what it all means (I’ve thought about going and seeing a medium but thats a whole other topic), but she was there and it was vivid so for now I’ll take it.

Super Bowl Sunday 2013

I love Super Bowl Sunday! Even if I don’t have a team in the fight, I still love it! I love Super Bowl Food, I love the commercials, I love the Half Time Show, I love buying squares (of course only in states where its legal LOL) and I just love watching the excitement of the game no matter who is in it!

But Super Bowl Sunday also has some dark memories for me that this year are particularily tough.

NOTE TO READER: stop reading this and revisit it tomorrow if you want to hear nothing but happy tales today.

So most of you know by now or have figured it out through my previous writings that my mom was an Addict. Actually both my mom and my dad were Addicts and I dealt with being the child of an Addict my whole life, but that is alot of back story to tell and will have to wait for another day. At some point around 2010 my mom had fallen off the wagon after being clean for about 12 years (again another story for another day). It started off because she had broken her shoulder while walking a dog and had to have surgery and go on pain meds. Even though Alcohol had always been her drug of choice she got addicted to the pain meds and then ultimately moved back to alcohol to get off the pain meds. For those of us that have never battled addiction this thought process of moving from one drug to another to get off the first doesn’t make a ton of sense, but for an Addict it absolutely does.

Fast forward to 2013… In the back of my mind I think I knew she had fallen off the wagon, but like the good child of an addict I convinced myself that she wouldn’t do this to me AGAIN and there was no way she was drinking again. There were signs of course: mistakes at work she’d normally never make, isolating herself in her apartment even from me, my liquor disappearing from my house. I resorted to leaving little notes under the decanters saying “Don’t drink me I’m expensive” and “Please don’t fill me with water”. It was like having a teenager around. But I never could fully confront her, because I just didn’t want to believe it was true and in a weird way I felt like it was my fault (which later in a drunken mess she would tell me she did blame me and then recant again after she went into Recovery…man is there a lot to tell you). Again, classic feeling for a kid of an Alcoholic. Then Super Bowl 2013 happened…. she had obviously started early that day or maybe she never stopped from the night before but she ended up fainting (lets be real passing out) in the bathroom and hitting her head on the sink. I had to call an ambulance to come get her and take her to the hospital. After hours she was cleared with no major injuries thank goodness, but I was given instructions on what to do just to make sure she didn’t have a concussion. Brought her home got her in bed and comfortable and listened to her give me the whole “I’m sorry routine”, but still we didn’t discuss the elephant in the room. At this point I figured we were good so Pat (my husband at the time….oh yea he is another story too) and I went down to the neighbors to watch The Big Game!

I don’t know how much time passed but it wasn’t that long (I mean the game wasn’t even over) before my phone rang and it was her. I answered my phone to hear her sobbing and teling me to come quick she had fallen. I of course raced up the road to find her slumped at the bottom of the stairs that she had fallen down holding her arm…it clearly was jacked up. So I put her back in the car and raced to the hospital for the second time that day. Now this is where is becomes PRICELESS…. got her to the hospital and got her checked in and the doctor and what I thought was a nurse asked to speak to me privately. I literally thought to myself this is it, the circus act is over, time to discuss the elephant. But nope the doctor and what turns out to be a social worker start questioning me about Elder Abuse. Are you fricking kidding me I yelled at them, you think I did this to her or somebody in the family? Ummmm hello she is a ragging alcoholic I screamed at them. I had lost it enough was enough. I told them to patch her up and keep her overnight cause nobody was going to deal with her for the rest of the evening and I left the hospital mad as hell.

I drove back home went into her apartment and started ransacking the place. The amount of empty bottles of wine and liquor I found hidden were shocking to me and I literally just sobbed and sobbed while I boxed them up and left them in an empty box in the middle of her living room so when she did come home the next day she would see the Elephant was no longer going to be silent.

At this point I’ll stop going into all the back and forth that happened from that day till I checked her in for Medical Detox in April of that same year. I’m sure we will revisit it again because there are more stories to tell, but this is getting long and you and I both have other things to do today. Like watch The Puppy Bowl, the 1st Annual Snail Bowl (do a search of Snail Bowl and Jimmy Fallon if you don’t know what I’m talking about LOL) and of course The Big Game. But I guess the point of today’s writing is that life is so damn complicated. At one point, I woke up this morning feeling sad because mom wasn’t a football fan but she loved the commercials and the half time show and The Puppy Bowl and she would have been all about The Snail Bowl. We would have texted all day today. She was my best friend thats what best friends do! But on the flip side I can’t help remembering the milestones that happened along the way that got her to the place of finally being Sober and us having the relationship we did the last almost 6 years. The point of my writings aren’t to make you believe we lived in a land of unicorns and rainbows rather they are to give you Hope that tomorrow can be a better day.

xoxo,

Lydia

Forced to Write an Obit

So early on the funeral home asked for me to write an obituary that they could post on their website and then I was told it could also be sent out to the local newspaper. Not gonna lie, I was kinda surprised about the newspaper part…do people really still do that? I mean newspapers at least around this area are fairly obsolete it seems, but I was assurred by a few people that yes local newspapers do still print Obituaries (and people DO still read them LOL) and I should consider it. Well knowing my mom, my first reaction was UMMMMM NO! She would not want an Obit written and she certainely wouldn’t wanted it splashed across one or more newspapers. And then once I discovered that on the low end an obituary is like $200 to submit I definetely was like no way! Mom would rather I play the lottery with that money then waste it on her obituary. And I’m sorry but that just seems outrageous to ask a family to spend that kind of money on something like that especially during the whole grieving process (I have a feeling I’ll be discussing my feelings about the craziness of the funeral industry at some point especially when it comes to money so be prepared).

So I put off writing the Obituary. I mean in this day and age of Social Media and in particular Facebook, I feel like anybody that needed to know already did and there had already been several posts and pictures floating around so why did I need to do something formal. Honestly, Why did I need to put myself through that. My emotions are pretty raw and fragile as it is. Then I got the Life Insurance packet that I needed to fill out to file the claim. And guess what it fricking asks for….yup the Obituary, are you kidding me. You have the Death Certificate people why would you need the obituary too, not sure a copy of that proves anything more. Shaking My Head! So here I sat in the same spot I am now, trying to concisely put in to words some sort of eulogy that remotely paid her justice.

I got through it and I won’t lie I’m kinda glad I have like an official link to share and people can write in the guestbook and all that… so in the end I guess it was theraputic. But I seriously hate feeling like I was forced into doing something that not only did I not want to do, but my mom wouldn’t have wanted me to have to do either.

So here it is for those of you who want to see it….the official Obituary of Patricia “Patti” C, Best.

https://www.colonialfuneralhome.com/obituary/5815861

A Birthday is a Special Thing

So it’s Birthday Week around this house…not my Birthday Week (which you’ll come to learn about someday if you aren’t familiar with it yet), but Bob and Smudge’s Birthday Week. For those of you who don’t know or for those of you that just need a refresher, Bob (or Robert as Shawn calls him) is my mom’s Pitbull other wise known as Blogging Bob (oh man is that a story) and Smudge aka The Baby Smudge (as she likes to be referred to by her full name much like The Queen of England) is my English Bulldog. Bob turned 12 on January 20th and Smudge turned 8 on January 22nd.

I don’t know about your house but around here dog birthdays are just as big a big deal as human birthdays and because these were milestone birthdays: Bob’s first without his mom and Smudge turning 8 (Bulldogs only live 8-10years so anytime a Bulldog hits 8 its a time for extra celebration) we tried to make both feel extra special this year. Lucky for Willow (my Black Lab), whose Birthday isn’t till March, she got to reap in the rewards for just living here. So Bob and Smudge got new toys and treats and extra love and attention and of course their own posts on Facebook LOL. But of course the dogs Birthdays are yet another thing that makes me miss my mom terribly and I’d be lying if I said there were no tears shed in this house as we’ve celebrated. You see, My mom made me look like a rank amateur in the dog birthday department! She always did the best stuff for the dogs on their Birthdays: she’s baked them cakes from scratch, knitted them scarves of their own and always managed to find the perfect toys and treats for them, shoot she even sent them Birthday cards LOL.

Actually, my mom managed to make everybody feel pretty amazing on their Birthday. One of my favorite things she did was if you were Facebook Friends with her she would post a picture of a Birthday Cake that reminded her of you on your Facebook Wall. I always loved seeing what she picked out for people and if you have ever been a recipient of one of those pictures you knew it was always pretty spot on and would definetely make you smile.

Honestly, I don’t know how she did it…how she kept up with all these people. In her death, I’ve come to realize what an incredible impact she had on people’s lives and her relationships with people were so incredibly genuine. She had a group of people she texted every day to tell them she was thinking of them and encourage them in some way (this is probably one of the things I miss most each day), she was always buying little gifts that reminded her of people (and people did the same for her), she had special jokes and days with people (Norma and Hump Day Camels, Shawn and Giraffes), shoot she even had an entire Facebook Group called Gal Pals where she posted inspiring messages to all the woman in her life that she had brought together in one place. And all this, all this was REAL! She did it because she truly cared for people and wanted to see people live their best lives just like she was doing. She was a mother, teacher, mentor and friend to so many. And I know right now people are reading this and nodding their heads YES in agreement.

Now I won’t blow smoke up your back end, it wasn’t always like this…she wasn’t always like this (even though I’m pretty sure she always wanted to be). She lost her way many times throughout her life (alcoholism will do that to a person), but don’t most of us! But she worked hard in the last almost 6 years to become the woman she was when she died. To become what the author Sarah Ban Breathnach calls your Authentic Self (if you are a woman and aren’t reading Simple Abundance everyday you should be). And I for one hope one day I can achieve that too.

I’ve said many times over the last few weeks since she passed…Mom died living her best life, being her best self her authentic self, she was Happy and Content with what she had and where she was, she had learned to accept the things of the past. Knowing this gives me some peace and makes me want to strive for the same. And though she is not here any longer, I know she will continue to guide me and she will always be my example.

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