Ten Years

[WickerBill]

You guys are like invisible family to me (except nrc and Grrl, who I've actually met), so I thought I'd share this blog post with you. It is crazy personal, but I needed to get it out of me.

http://bit.ly/10yrsmom

[SteveH]

nicely written, peace brother, peace

[Insomniac]

Well said and poignant. I'm glad that you are moving forward. The what if questions haunt us all, perhaps our greatest flaw and asset as humans.

[Don Quixote]

Thanks for sharing. Blessings.

[RaceGrrl]

What a great tribute to your mom. The fact that you still so acutely feel her absence is an indication of what a wonderful woman she must have been. Letting go of the what-if and if-only questions is another way to honor her. Wishing you peace. :(

[dando]

Poignant. Peace, WB. We jab, but I respect. :) I fear the same or my mom. Severe back issues. Takes more meds than I could ever imagine could ever be made. But she won't take pain meds unless it's the last resort. Started as an Exec Assistant at Emerson Electronics and then Wright Pat, but broke the glass ceiling as an HR VP before there was such a term. Lastly, cancer sucks. Period. :irked:

[nrc]

Thanks for sharing, WB. Moms have a way of knowing these things. Now she does for sure.

[pfc_m_drake]

Super nice, WB. Sorry for the subject of your blog, but I'm sure that somewhere, your mom's very proud of you.

[KaBoom21]

That was a wonderful read. Thank you for sharing.

[TravelGal]

It's taken me a day to get myself together enough to get my thoughts together enough to reply. I was sobbing by the end because I know so much of what you are feeling. I've wondered many times what particular point would stick into me so badly that I couldn't get over it. As TravelMom continues her inexorable but incredibly slow journey, I keep thinking It's this, or It's that. I know I will wonder what more I could have or should have done. I've concluded that we channel our grief into guilt or worry or anger because we rage against the outcome and our powerlessness to stop it.

You know in your heart of hearts that your mother loved you with a true mother's all-encompassing love and that she would put her arm around you, even now as grown up as you are, and tell you not to fret.

[stroker]

Today is my Mom's 88th birthday and I'll be thinking of your Mom when I call her. Thanks for sharing.

[WickerBill]

Thanks to everyone. Difficult to write, and also difficult to admit that this mostly self-inflicted baggage has been so hard to shake. Hopefully just having this online will help someone someday get past the hurdle of guilt and second-guessing.

I don't ever want my kids to feel this way when I go.

[Elmo T]

Thanks for that link.

I think what you've said and the responses here show is what we all know but have a hard time accepting in the moment. So often we feel like it is just us - that no one else would understand. I've found that venting it out helps a great deal. This one hits close to home for me. And it is something that I carry everyday.

My relationship with my Dad was up and down over the years. He lived close by (25 miles), but I seldom saw him except for family functions. We used talk about work stuff all the time. He was a retired PD Chief. Then even the phone calls slowed.

I called him when I found out that Mrs was pregnant with #2. I was getting ready to leave for a Disney vacation. We talked briefly and he said he would see us when we returned.

I called my sister a few days later at a slow moment during vacation. She said Dad wasn't feeling well and "maybe had pneumonia". (He was otherwise healthy at 61YO).

Received a phone call on my cell at 1130PM that night from my sister who said quite literally and directly "Dad is dead". Here I am 1000 miles away with my wife and baby daughter sleeping. It's midnight. I was lost.

Not a day goes by that I don't think about what I could have or should have said or done with him. He wasn't the best Dad. But he was my only Dad.

I've been reading a great deal about forgiveness the past few months. Forgiving others. More importantly forgiving ourselves. I am told it is not surrendering. It is not forgetting. It is about releasing others and ourselves from a debt. It is us taking charge. Or something like that. I guess it is still a work in progress for me.

[dando]

Thanks for that link.

I think what you've said and the responses here show is what we all know but have a hard time accepting in the moment. So often we feel like it is just us - that no one else would understand. I've found that venting it out helps a great deal. This one hits close to home for me. And it is something that I carry everyday.

My relationship with my Dad was up and down over the years. He lived close by (25 miles), but I seldom saw him except for family functions. We used talk about work stuff all the time. He was a retired PD Chief. Then even the phone calls slowed.

I called him when I found out that Mrs was pregnant with #2. I was getting ready to leave for a Disney vacation. We talked briefly and he said he would see us when we returned.

I called my sister a few days later at a slow moment during vacation. She said Dad wasn't feeling well and "maybe had pneumonia". (He was otherwise healthy at 61YO).

Received a phone call on my cell at 1130PM that night from my sister who said quite literally and directly "Dad is dead". Here I am 1000 miles away with my wife and baby daughter sleeping. It's midnight. I was lost.

Not a day goes by that I don't think about what I could have or should have said or done with him. He wasn't the best Dad. But he was my only Dad.

I've been reading a great deal about forgiveness the past few months. Forgiving others. More importantly forgiving ourselves. I am told it is not surrendering. It is not forgetting. It is about releasing others and ourselves from a debt. It is us taking charge. Or something like that. I guess it is still a work in progress for me.

:(

Haven't seen my father in over 11 years. The day after Carolanne was hatched. He came to the hospital. I have one picture with him holding her. He begged out of her baptism a couple of months later (some work thing at the VFW). Haven't seen or heard from him since other than a wedding invite for his third wife. No idea if he's dead or alive, and he has no idea about Katherine. Sad. :\

[manic mechanic]

WB, mine is 9 years ago today. The day me and my siblings lost our mom.

There was no way any of us could have been in the hospice when she passed, but I got a call around 8 in the morning (I was at the track, doing what my mom knew I loved doing) from a hospice nurse who told me that cancer had won around 4:30 that morning.

The only consolation I had was that I knew from the first diagnosis 71/2 months earlier that this was out of my control, and that all I could do was to be the man she raised, and one she could be proud of. Only my strength and prayers could be of real assistance; mom had to fight this one herself.

On the inside, I was a mess. Never really acknowledging a few facts:

I never knew she was proud of me until the last few weeks.. I always felt I should have been better.

...But I did remember to thank her for all the things she did for me.

The last "thank you" brought tears to both our eyes.
I look back 9 years and still hurt because I couldn't do more at the time.

Fast forward to 2011: Within 8 months, I lost three great female mentors (in my book, 2011 was not a good year for keeping brilliant women in the world). Linda Wood, MaryAnn B. Wagner, PhD (my step-mom), and Janet Hunt (my aunt) all left us within an 8 month period.

I began to look at what these great women had brought to my life, and one thought crossed my mind: Did I say THANK YOU enough?

Mrs. manic (aka Thunder Rose) provided me with the crux of the answer in an eloquent statement:

"IF you said it and MEANT it, they knew...They still know..." :thumbup:

You people (and those from other websites and CCWS/CCIC) SAVED ME.

Being accepted (and reasonably well regarded) in this great community gave me the faith and strength not to buckle under the pressures of the situation. I believe I expressed this at both the 2006 CCIC dinner at Denver and the 2007 CCIC dinner in Vegas that I hosted, and to this day I relish the fact that you people have your own lives, your own problems, and much more pressing matters at hand than some old guy's problems that you can't help with directly.

When I say THANK YOU to all of you, I hope you know.

manic

[WickerBill]

Manic, thanks buddy. Does me a world of good just to realize I'm not the only one in this situation.