NikB #26 (tentatively moving to Piecing, again)

[NikB]

Thanks again so much, everyone. I owe individual replies and I will do it very soon... for now just some journaling.

Spent tonight having dinner with my Mom and bro. My bro spent the day with my Mom and talked her into opening this mysterious box of unopened photos and history that Grandma had given her years back but she never opened. It turned out to be so neat - lots of photos of grandma growing up, and even earlier than that, her parents growing up. There was a pic of her parents' wedding and one of grandma around 6 months old (in 1919). Mom even finally accepts my grandma loving my grandpa... hard to explain but he was kinda abusive so she used to get angry and it meant a lot to me that she understood how grandma saw it differently.

Mom said she hasn't looked through that box because she was afraid to and my bro talked her into it - they ended up having a wonderful day together talking about family history, Mom's memories as a kid, etc. I met them after work and they showed me their "treasures" from the photo box.. it was very special. She remembered a lot of things she hadn't thought of in years and my bro also found lots of "mystery people" to chase down - something he really loves to do and we can probably enjoy doing together. Mom doesn't talk about her childhood much and these pictures really prompted her to, it was neat.

After that I went to the grocery store to get some basics and do "card shopping" and it was so weird. We have a LOT of birthdays all together. My FIL, grandfatherIL, brother, SIL, Mom, and Grandma are all within a few weeks and mother's day is in there too. I never really "noticed" it but I always do a marathon card shopping trip and get those all at once. I went to the card store tonight and was mostly looking at funny cards (H's preference for his family) and suddenly just LOST IT. I saw all the mother's day cards (and picked one up about "Thank you Mom, I'm who I am and your granddaughter is who she is because of you..") .. wow. I finally gave up on about half the cards, will just have to face that later.

When I got home I called Mom (as promised, it's our "got home safe" call) and was still a little weepier than I realized. She asked what happened and I told her... hadn't occured to me, this is the first year she has no Mother's Day or BD card to buy for her Mom. .

I apologized for being sad and she said "We're a poor excuse for a family if we can't cry together" - somehow that made me feel really good. So we had a good cry and then got feeling better again.

I got brave and told her how I felt guilty about Thanksgiving too. She really made me feel better - said it was grandma's choice to isolate herself, not mine, and I ALWAYS included her but she chose not to come. I was feeling really guilty about not going up there last year but I was just in such a bad mental place at the time.

At that time it took all the strength I had to a. be with grandma all day (she was very depressed) OR b. get through Thanksgiving post-new-bomb and I just couldn't do both. Mom told me I made the right choice and it was even hard for her to be there and took her awhile to recover from the depression aspect. It alleviated a lot of guilt.

Still wish I had spent more time with grandma but.. you know, I think keeping her in my heart and especially keeping her compassionate nature in my heart is the most important thing.

This weekend will be interesting. Tomorrow I'm mostly working on grandma's obit. and her memorial page. (she would probably be both proud and freaked out to be on the WWW ). Sat. night is supposed to be a surprise BD party with friends - probably will go but we'll see. I assumed H would go even if I didn't but he told me "I didn't commit 'us' to anything as I know 'we' might be doing something for your grandma." Felt sooo goood.

Sunday we have a birthday party with H's family to celebrate a bunch of their birthdays that fall in April. Everyone has said I should come and asked me to invite my Mom - they said "We're a big family and you opted in, good or bad, and that includes your Mom and Grandma if they like it or not." (it's meant in a cute way, not sure if it translates in text). They even offered to move the birthdays and make Sunday a memorial if that was important to my grandma. She wanted us to do nothing at all so, I told them no but that we might do a "celebration of her life" in awhile.

Thanks for letting me ramble. Promise to reply individually soon, been an overwhelming few days. Mom tonight kept saying "last week" and we kept remembering it had only been a day.. whew.