December is one of my most favorite months of the year. I LOVE the holiday season. It has also become one of the most challenging months for me. As many of you know, my mother passed away a while ago. December 7th marks seven years since her passing. Every year I feel something different. Sometimes there is a peace I experience with her being gone. Some years I feel angry. This year, I feel… alone.
My mom did not believe in being a best friend to her daughters. She believed in making us tough. She wanted us to chase after everything and anything we wanted and she never wanted us to settle. Rosemary Barnett was not perfect. But she was my mom- and that’s perfect for me. I was sometimes scared to tell her things because I was worried about letting her down. Her expectations for us were pretty gosh darn high. Looking back, I am glad for it. She made me have a backbone. She encouraged me to live my life on my terms- even when other people might not like it. Mom used to say that if you change your mind just because someone else has a problem or issue with what you are saying or doing, how you can be certain of what you stand for or what it is you truly want. And she would say it all in that tone. You know what I am talking about, right? The tone that intimidates and comforts us all at once. It’s the tone of mothers.
When you experience the loss of a loved one, the emotions are all over the place. Everyone experiences grief differently. At the time of her passing, I wasn’t really able to grieve. I had to hold it together. Everyone (not just me) had lost someone; a wife, a daughter, a friend, a sister, an aunt, a cousin, a coworker, etc. My grief was also slower to appear. The realization of her not being here has hit me hard. It hit me hard when I married my husband. It hits me hard when I realize she will never meet her grandchildren. It’s almost unbearable to think too much about. She spent so much time shopping for the babies of her friends and family. She loved it. Like, LOVED it. She was an excellent gift giver (something I have not inherited). Grammy Rosemary will never get to shop for her grandbabies. That thought is a true kick in my gut.
Since having baby Rosemary, I have missed having a consistent and maternal woman in my life. The truth is, no one can take her place. Honestly I am not sure I would let anyone try. I miss her no nonsense attitude telling me to toughen up. I miss her tickling me with her toes. I miss the way she would give Bella the last of her yogurt (I can assure you Bella misses this too and to this day still goes ape sh*$ when she sees us eating yogurt- thanks for that, mom). I miss having someone to ask questions too or recall things about life when we were little. She had a knack for remembering everything. This was very helpful unless she was pulling something out of the mental filing cabinet against me!! Haha.
I am not much like my mom. I look like her. I sound like her. But I am nowhere near as strong as she was. I am nowhere near as even tempered with people as she was. Her kindness was known to everybody from her coworkers and family to the grocery store checkout clerk at the local Safeway. Having to tell people that she had passed is also what kept me pretty hardened with my grief. A few days after she had passed, she missed an eye appointment. She had seen Dr. Peck for years. He knew her and his staff knew her. Having to call and explain this to the receptionist turned into one of the hardest moments of my life. Telling my family we had let her go was excruciating. Telling her best friend, Joan, was so painful my throat hurt from holding back tears. Yet, telling Dr. Peck’s receptionist became one of the hardest moments for me when this poor woman broke down into tears… this is a woman that, sure, knew my mom but didn’t even know her as well as others. That’s when I knew my mom left an impression.
As I have grown our family, I have missed her. The truth is, it’s lonely not to have your mom to talk to. In the past year, that’s the grief emotion I have felt most: lonely. I am lonesome without my mom. I could really use her right now. I also really want to care for her. I wish I could give her all the grandbaby snuggles and kisses. I wish I could cook for her. I wish I could do something for her- the way she did everything for me.
The last feeling I want to talk about with grief is shame. Sometimes, I feel shame. I feel a little bit of shame in that it took us so long to really connect. It’s not all my fault, but I do feel bad and naive for thinking that we had all the time in the world. I also feel deep shame in wondering if I made her proud. How vain is that? Yet, it’s what I want to know most and will never get an answer to. There was a lot left unfinished for not just us but for her. She was on the cusp of doing so many things- she had plans! And I feel shame that I couldn’t help her do those things or live out those things more when she was alive. Again, thinking you have all the time in the world is normal but not always true.
To honor my mom best, I try my hardest to make Christmas a jolly time for my family. While I don’t have the talent for gift giving (or wrapping for that matter) that she did, I do know how to make the spirit of the season burst from the seams of my house just like she did. I am different from her. But I am who I am because of her. For that, I am thankful.
The Salty Exchange 