My first Mother's Day alone. To be strong or to mope?

I didn't realize it until a couple of days ago, that I would be spending Mother's day alone.  I really don't know how tomorrow will go.  Brandon my living son is in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec on his Basic course.  He's a grown man at 22 but yet I miss him terribly.  I am glad he has joined the military.  Finally. He will be home in 3 months but in a few weeks he will have the weekend off so hopefully he can make it to see me.

I am settled in my new place.  It has it's good and it's bad.  The goods being it is a new place for me and I don't have the constant reminder of my losses.  Zachery for one.  My marriage for two. I am renting and living on post, so it is half the cost and half the size to clean.  Oh, and it is 2 minutes from work, not even.  The bad, well there is not a whole lot of bad.  The only bad is I don't feel Zachery near me here.  My old house I could feel his presence everywhere, every room I was in and every breath I took.  I could still smell his sweet baby smell everywhere.  I really neglected my gardens after I lost Zachery.  I neglected everything.  I saw no happiness and no point in life.  I remember I used to look out the backyard and it was like a movie playing in my head, us out in my weedless, perfectly manicured garden, the pond, the pool.  I was so happy.  I look back and took that happiness for granted sometimes.

I am happy, somewhat, don't get me wrong.  I am able to work, go to the gym, do things that once upon a time, I found no happiness in.  I went from finding and using every bit of strength to get out of bed, then get dressed.  I remember just doing that felt like I had run a marathon.  Literally.  Only to make myself down the stairs and flop and mope on the couch and reach for the converter and flip the tv on.  I did that many days, calling in sick to work, and just sleeping away my days.  I slept and slept and I slept.  I slept so much because it was my only escape from the sheering pain that was ripping my heart apart.  Even to breathe ached, my whole entire body felt it.  There were so many dark days, I felt what is the point?

The point was, that Brandon who was 15 at the time, still needed me.  And still needs me.  His happiness was more important than me escaping my pain and ending it all.  As painful as it was, I made it through and am still here.  It wasn't easy let me tell you. 

I had many days that I contemplated taking my own life.  It was every other day.  Or sometimes it was a bunch of days, and many times in those days put together.  Driving my car off the road.  Parking my car in the garage and leave it running.

I will brief about this.  I had come very very close one day.  It was about a year after. I had been on Oxycontin pain killers for my 2 herniated discs as well as Percocets.  I had a full bottle.  I thought I just can't hang on to this string anymore, I can't do it.  I poured the almost full bottle of Oxycontins in my hand which was about 80, 20mg pills and poured a glass of water.  I was just about to open my mouth and put the pills in and swallow them.  But for some reason a light went off.  I thought, OMG, Brandon is at school and will come home and find me.


I put the pills away and never really thought about it again.   What I thought after that and every day after was, how am I going to cope, how am I going to hang on to this string?

Getting posted to a new unit helped, I met new people.  I met a guy who is now one of my best and closest friends Alex.  He has got me through some of my toughest days. I also met someone online.  He was a good online friend and is in the American military.  He helped me through a lot of dark days, mostly just occupying my time by talking to me.  Sometimes for 5 hours.  We haven't talked in a year and I often wonder if he is ok.  He deployed to Afghanistan last year.  I am and was so grateful for those two people in my life.

So tomorrow, I might just drive to Caledonia and visit Zachery.  Sometimes long drives with loud music will drown out my thoughts.  My mom Mary Anne passed away when I was 14 months old of a brain tumour and my (step) mom who felt like my real mom as she is the only mother I knew, passed away 11 Nov 2000.  So, it is not like I can go visit them and bring them flowers and stuff.  My step mom's ashes were scattered at the family home in the garden as she wanted.  My mom is buried in Burlington at Holy Sepulchre cemetery.  It is strange, I look at her pictures and hear stories about her.  Strange, strange that she is my mother and I don't have that "connection" I should have.  I don't know her.  I will never know her.  I feel guilty.  Guilty because I don't think about her that often.  I should.  This is my mother.  A mother who chose to have me rather than surgery to take her tumour out.  She had 5 children.  I am the youngest, and knew my dad since they were both 14 or so.  She was 41 when she passed away.  I posted her picture on one of my facebook's (I have 2, one for friends and angel parent friends and the other for friends in case you have come across both and wonder) and have had a couple of people tell me I look just like her.  I always thought I looked like my dad.  But looking at her picture every day for the last week made me realize I am the spitting image of her.

I know this post is a lot of muttering back and forth and jumping from one topic to to the next but, it has helped me decide that tomorrow I will be productive and go do something like go the the gym, shower, hop in the car and visit Zachery and my mom.

And to all the Angel parents and BLM, I will be thinking of all of you tomorrow.  Here is a song for all of our children that have went before us.  If only they could have lived.  Never mind 100 years