2003-06-23 - 12:04 a.m.
'this entry is not about the "american idol" movie'
When I do, I like to pretend that I walk into the kitchen rubbing the sleep from my eyes to find my mom
there making horrible pancakes from Bisquick. And there's Ruby Red grapefruit juice on the table. And three
place settings set. One for each of us (because with one missing we're somehow unwhole). And she sees
me and beams in that way she used to do that made me know that a real happiness in my mom's life
started with my birth. In those moments, and in the ones I conjure in my head, I felt that love from the
very top of my head to the very soles of my feet. Sometimes I wake up and for the breifest of moments
I allow myself to believe that my mom is still alive. And we're still young. And happy.
Sometimes still when I walk around this town in the middle of some random summer night like tonight,
I'm forced to think back to a time when I never ever slept. To a time when the stars peppering the clear Nebraska
sky meant nothing more than sadness and mosquito bites to me. I remember the times when my mom slept in
her childhood bedroom, the bedroom in which I now sit, and she was a mere splinter of the phsyical presence
she once was. So small. And so fragile. But with the densest spirit of anyone I've ever known or will know. It
cloaked us all in a false hope. But also in her love.
Being here is too much because of that sometimes. Because I know the reality is that our love was not enough.
I know that our love was not her cure. All of our struggling and hoping and loving and crying and praying wasn't enough.
Being here reminds me of when she was sick, but holding tight to the possibility of wellness. Holding on in a way I never
thought possible. And in a way that I know I could never match. Being here right now reminds me of a time when
I felt broken, we all did, but she seemed so full and together on the outside. Now I know she ached and suffered
on the inside. And sometimes that's just too much. Far too much. Being here coats me thick in those memories
to where I barely have the energy to run.
Or to remember fully. Because sometimes remembering's just too hard. And the days here are so long. And so full of
everything that once was. And the anniversary of her death hangs in the air like this thing waiting to be plucked from
the depths of me and waved in front of my face. The day's approaching like bullets sprayed from the weapon of a
trigger-happy gunman. It lurks and taunts and haunts my every second. My every smile. My every good thought.
Because sometimes even the best memories are marked with a blackness. The blackness of a reality none of us
thought possible. The blackness of a future with no more memories to be made.
But they always say that time will make the blackness fade. They always say that things will get better as time keeps
ticking right by. And god I hope that's the truth. If I have an ounce of faith in me, it all goes to that hope. To the idea that
in time the bruises on my insides will go dull and the good memories will be made shiny again.
�
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