Missing my mom.

The plan was that I was going to start this new blog and it was going to be happy and we weren't going to talk about death and we weren't going to talk about financial meltdowns... that plan is good, but it's just not realistic all the time. Death is part of life, it's a huge part of my life unfortunately and a very obvious reality. This blog is for those of us who know that as much as I like to have fun, cook, and make things my reality is still here. Every single day (more than ever lately) I wake up and think 'holy crap why is my whole family gone?'. I didn't know it was going to be like this. My dad and my brother have been gone for years. More than enough time for me to come to terms with it and to get used to living without them. Losing my mom has brought it all back. I know right now it's harder because I am so far from "home" so far from where they all were the last time I saw them, the last time we were all together. It's also harder right now because Gianna has been missing her grandma so much.She has come to me almost every day and said something or asked me something about her grandma. I am very lucky that my girls were so close to my mom. So glad that she lived with us for 5 years so she was such an important part of our family. They will both have such great memories of her because of it.
My birthday is in a few weeks and last year on my birthday is when my mom got sick. I wrote about it here. That weekend was the beginning of the end. The end of everything we knew as normal. I spent the next 5 weeks taking care of my mom and healing our relationship too. My mom and I always struggled with our relationship. Now looking back I regret not trying harder. I talked to her best friend the other night and she told me that I have nothing to regret, she tells me that my mom always talked about how good I was to her and how much she loved me. She did, she really did. When I walked into her casita and she saw me she lit up. She was so happy to see me. Nobody will ever love me like that, Nobody will ever light up like that again. My kids and Chris love me but as us mothers know there truly is nothing like the love we have for our children. I was all my mom had. She had buried 3 children and given another one up. I was it. Sometimes the pressure of that was too much for me. Knowing that she depended on me so much for everything was difficult. Trying to raise my children, take care of the house, work full time and be a good wife was more than I could handle. Being there for my mom sometimes took it over the top. I hated the pressure. I resented it. I didn't understand (still don't) why I was the one that was left. How come they all died and I didn't? I will never know. I should be grateful, I know but sometimes it's hard to be grateful without feeling a little guilt too.
It's been almost a year since we lost her and in that year my entire life was turned upside down, It has been the absolute hardest time of my life. The enormity of it all sometimes gets to be too much. Sometimes I want to crawl in a hole and shut everyone out... sometimes I do. The rest of the time I spend with my girls and my husband. I try to enjoy every minute I have with them. Try to make sure that my kids know how much I love them so that when the day comes that I am not here they can look back and know that nobody loves them like their mom.