What if’s

Missing you is hard enough but man do I hate when the what if’s start to weigh in. It’s the things I didn’t do or better yet the things I’d wish I’d done better that make me wish so badly that I had the ability to reverse time. The list goes on and on, almost as if it grows with each passing moment. The though of what if I had one more moment with you, the things I’d do or say to make you realize how much you truly meant to me; because lord knows I never told you enough. Every night when before I close my eyes I pray that you’d be able to forgive me for all the what if’s I’ve turned into regrets. I wish more than anything I’d made more memories and took more photos, because what I have left of you isn’t enough.

rain, rain, don’t go away.

I live in Texas so as you can imagine, the only weather we really get is sunshine. And when I say sunshine I really mean we get blazing heat, for the past couple of weeks we’ve managed to survive triple digit temperatures. But for once the forecast is showing mid to low 90s as the high, and that honestly sounds glorious compared to what we’ve been living in. Today’s weather though is perfection, it’s 71 and has been raining since the middle of the night.

Pluviophile

(n.) a lover of the rain; someone who finds joy and peace of mind during rainy days.

I absolutely love the rain and the calm it brings. And the sound of rain, oh my, the sound of rain makes me feel so nice and cozy inside. Rainy days are meant for coffee and reading a book, or in my case coffee and blogging. There are many different meanings behind rain, but for the most part it is dependent on the situation. As summer is reaching an end, I am choosing to believe the rain as a symbol of good things coming after a bad times or it can just mean the washing away of the old and regrowing something better.

Just like the different meanings of rain, rainy days for me are not always nonproductive. I love being able to skip into a raincoat and some rainboots and just go out into the rain getting errands and all kinds of things done. Rain in general brings out a better side of me because I’m not burning in the Texas heat. Here’s to hoping we’ll have actually fall and winter temperatures this year.

Sign from heaven

If your intuition tells you that something you’ve seen, heard, or sensed is a sign from Heaven then you should trust that your instinct is right.

When you’re missing someone you start looking for signs to show they’re missing you too. Some of the more common signs from loved ones in heaven are sudden blast of cold with no obvious source, waking up in the middle of the night sensing someone in the room with you, hearing your name repeatedly, capturing orbs in your photo, lingering birds, butteries, or dragonflies, feathers, a robin, finding dimes or pennies, displaced objects in your personal space, familiar scents, dreams, flickering light, numbers, and so much more.

For years my parents shared the same phone line, the reason being they spent all their time doing things together so they really only needed one cellphone; and if they weren’t together one of them would be at home so for the longest time we still had a landline. When my mom finally decided she wanted her own phone line, my dad took over the original phone number they had. ***Keep this in mind for the second part of my story

He’s brought it up a few times within the last month and a half but every single time he changes his mind right after, but yesterday was a different story. Yesterday my dad officially decidied he was ready to turn off my mom’s phone service, but of course I didn’t want him to have to be the one to utter those words that are still so hard to say so I told him I would handle it. I called and spoke to AT&T to tell them we no longer needed that phone line and would like to go ahead and cancel it, and then she asked the question that I was dreading the most “why are you wanting to close this line?” I think I took three or four deep breaths to be able to say it and I’m sure my voice was shaky when I did, but I was actually able to say it out loud “my mom passed away.”

Every day for the past couple of weeks my dad has gone to work and come home for lunch around 12 o’clock; 1 o’clock on the dot being the latest that he’d start heading home. And every single meal he’s had since she passed, he sets out a plate for her too. This afternoon we were running a couple of minutes behind our usual schedule, it was about 1:06 when dad’s phone rang but he wasn’t too worried about picking it up since he was driving; instead he said he’d return the call whenever we got home. Just as any other day, dad came into he house and set his things on the dining room table then went to change into something more comfortable. When he came out of the room, I noticed he had a smile plastered onto his face (something I shared previously that he isn’t doing much these days) while looking down into his phone. He looked up at me, smiled, and said she had called him. I didn’t even have to ask him who “she” was because immediately I had goosebumps. It wasn’t her own phone number that had called him, rather it was his own phone number that called. For years my mom would call my dad to see where he was if he were even a minute late from getting home for mealtime. Today our angel even called from heaven to let us know she was waiting for us at home.

If you’re reading this right now, I hope you see the most beautiful sign from Heaven.

Hiya

It’s been a few days since I’ve been able to post anything. Every time I try to write, I can’t do it. I’ll even admit I really haven’t been in the best of moods. Grieving is a hard thing to do because it’s different for everyone, one thing to remember on your journey is it’s okay not to be okay. It’s okay to have bad days here and there, just as it’s okay to have a good day. Personally for me I am currently struggling to have good days because immediately after I realize the day is going in my favor, I start to feel guilty; and although that sucks it’s okay to feel like that too. I’ll be perfectly happy and the second I realize it, I start to beat myself up. Sometimes it’s for the stupidest reasons too, but mainly it’s because I hate that I’m able to carry on with my day and then I’ll notice I hadn’t thought of her for a couple of hours and that’s when guilt, anger, and depression take back over. It’s not like I don’t want to be happy again, because in all honesty I really do… I’m just not done being sad yet.

No matter how you feel, it’s important to allow yourself to express those feelings because it only makes you human. I found this self care menu and I thought I’d share it because what better way to get yourself out of a rut than spending a little extra time loving yourself.

Showers

The sound of the running water cues my tears to stream down my face. I was gonna lie and say I’m not sure why exactly it happens but as I’m typing this I know the truth, truth is the sound of the shower running drains out the sounds of me crying so I allow myself to fall apart. Throughout the day I’m able to compose myself and sometimes I even fool myself that I’m doing better than I actually am, but then at the end of the night I step into the shower and hear the running water…

So I cry. Actually let me correct myself, I don’t cry in the shower I ball in the shower. Only for a few minutes at a time, I uncontrollably ball my eyes out and then out of nowhere it just stop. Even if I wanted to continue to cry, I can’t. Everyone says it’s healthy to let it all out, and I believe that I really do but it’s the fact that I’ll be doing perfectly fine until I hear the sound of the running water. Almost as if my body knows the sound of the water means I’m alone and I can finally let my guard down.

Right here right now, I’ve officially decided I dislike showers.

Progress.

One of the hardest parts of grieving the loss of my mom is watching my dad grieve too. I’ve actually never ever seen my dad cry so hard or so much in my life, because he’s always been the happy one. My mom was the silly one and my dad was the happy one because he had her by his side. They were married for 45 years and never spent more than a few days apart from each other. It’s heart breaking watching him be so lost and lonely without her. I can’t even begin to comprehend what he must be going though, I’m having a hard enough time grieving her loss as her daughter… imagine losing the love of your life. They say no marriage is perfect, but man was my parent’s marriage pretty damn close. I’ve never seen two people more in love with each other. Seeing him without her is painful, he rarely smiles or laughs anymore… he barely even wants to talk or be around any of us, but I can’t blame him because I know he’s trying his best.

Right after she passed I remember him saying to us he wasn’t going to be able to do this, he wouldn’t be able to live without her. She was his everything and now he was alone, he couldn’t imagine waking up every single day and having to relive the sad reality that she was really gone.

Yesterday he turned on the television for the first time since she passed and was watching a show they use to watch together, I could see how much it hurt him to have to continue doing things without her. He sat curled up on the couch, trying so hard to focus on anything other than her memory. For once he even stayed up passed 8 o’clock and I even caught him fighting off a smile here and there.