To Be Continued... [Pt. 2]

The first person I ever loved was my mom. The first person I ever lost was my mom. Before I could even grasp what loving a person meant, and before I could grasp what having a person love you unconditionally feels like, I was losing her. I mean, I guess you can say my father was my first loss since he wasn't really around, but there's just something about a person being so tangibly alive then just...not. Nothing else in this world feels like that.

It's been almost 15 years and I can still feel her presence, and not because I still feel her but because I don't feel her anymore. A part of me will always feel devoid of...something, and there's no feeling more pressing and more evident than emptiness. No person can fill it, no activity can distract from it, no emotion can overpower it; it's always there. But you know what? I'm okay with that now, because it's a part of my testimony. Of course I have my days when I think about what it would be like to hear her laughter in the next room as she's watching her favorite TV show (I like to imagine we'd like the same shows), and days when I cry because I miss her so much, and even days when I'm angry at myself because I realize I can't readily remember what she sounded like. Thing is, even though I have bad days, I can always think about how her death has given me hope.

I pray to one day be so blessed that I can leave such a lasting impression on a child (or children) of my own. My mom was only here for 10 years of my life, but she is still my biggest influence and motivation. We no longer live in the same world, but I am still her daughter and I still live to make her proud. She is a big part of the reason I came back to God. She is the reason I push myself everyday to be kinder to people than they are to me. There aren't many people I know now who ever met my mom. It is up to me to let who she was shine through me so the people I love can get to know the woman who loved me so much. Once I realized that, I had no choice but to turn to God and ask Him for forgiveness and to show me how to love. I chose to stop being angry that she is no longer here on Earth with me and to see the point of it all instead. It was then that I could finally understand how much God loves me. I had no reference point before because I was so hurt and bitter and mad at the world. I couldn't see how much love I had already experienced; I couldn't see that I actually did have a very good example of how to express love. I allowed myself to detach from all I had learned from the first positive experience of love I'd ever known because I couldn't handle the pain of losing it.

I repressed so many thoughts and memories and emotions that I am just now, at 24, getting to this layer of truth. It's taken me way more time to explore and destroy all of the defenses I fortified than it took to build them in the first place. And now here I stand, finally getting it. The same way I want to exude who I know my mother was so those who never met her can know her too, is the same way I am to represent all that God IS so others can get to know Him.  Subconsciously searching for the love my mommy had for me brought me right to the feet of my Father. It was a long, rough road with many detours and a lot of doubling back, but by His grace I AM HERE. I am here to still learn and grow and most of all, to love. And I thank God for all it took to get me here, including all my mother was to me in the ten years I got to know her because almost fifteen years later it was enough to gather me and bring me back.

To Be Continued [Pt. 1]

It's taken me almost fifteen years to confront the moment when my entire world was turned upside down, when nothing made sense anymore, when the only person who truly understood me lie there in front of my ten year old eyes, lifeless.

That very next morning after her mommy's birthday, all ten years of her got in the shower and cried so hard. She washed away everything that made her who she was before she saw death in the flesh for the first time. She, too, became lifeless.  She was very smart for her age, but her little ten year old brain could barely comprehend life, let alone what had just happened. And the only person who could explain it to her in a way that she would understand was gone, which only made her cry more. Everything was blurry and dark and confusing so she just stopped moving...everything. She turned everything off and from that moment, life only happened TO her. Completely detached from reality, she just watched from outside of herself with ten year old eyes as her body merely went through the motions of the world. She was forced to don the hat of someone much older, but, barely alive, she never really grew up. That same little girl from that same morning in December of 1999 stood idle in that same shower for FOURTEEN YEARS waiting for life to make sense again.  In that shower, she let anger rule her because being mad was all she could cling to.

Then she got tired, so "strong" she became weak. Everything that happened around her began crashing down and falling apart, again. She fell to her knees because she couldn't hold everything on her own anymore, and the pain from the sudden smack into reality awakened her.

She realized life was happening whether she was mad or not. She accepted that she couldn't just stand there waiting for everything to magically make sense again; she had to DO something. She had to move. She had to go find herself and catch up on everything she'd missed. She had to make the choice to allow herself to feel all of her feelings, past and present. My ten year old self had to be brave enough to face the, now 24 year old, body she'd purposely neglected. Only brought together again could I begin to heal and get to where I am now: writing about how it took almost fifteen years to get here, to be able talk about it.

To be continued...