James has been away from home since Saturday evening; the longest time ever. I got a lot of sleep, but I don’t like being away from him for so long. This reality is terrible; I’d give away everything to just keep my boy with me so I have someone around.
I spend most days and nights alone; going through all the motions of everything I’m suppose to do and hoping it pays off. We are only 5 days away from the one month mark since Mom passed away and my heart sinks, my throat closes up, and my stomach turns into an uneasy sea, rolling and churning.
So many questions in my head. They keep me awake and distracted. Why did I have to lose my mother? Why will James never know her? What did any us of do to deserve this? Not only my mother, but I lost my father before James was born; again, why?
An orphan before I turned 29. Who else would that have happened to? It’s always felt to be that way: many don’t love me/care about me and the ones that do are gone too soon.
I sit facing the facts dead in the eye: I will always be single, I will always have a little less light in me now that my best friend is gone, I will forever be lost because she always had the right answers (or at least her wrong answers lead me towards the right ones).
Everyone tells me that James will always have pictures and stories of his YaYa. Like it’ll make me feel better, right? No. He’ll have those things, but what about personal memories and experiences meant only for the two of them. How many times will I hear “What was she like?” and “What kinds of things did she and I do?” When really he should be saying things like “Guess what YaYa and I did this weekend!” and “YaYa and I have a secret I’m not suppose to tell you.”
I think back on all the weekends Chris and I spent with our grandparents while Mom drove all the way back from Terre Haute just to turn around 40 hours later to come get us. Popcorn, movies, back scratches, catching lady bugs and fireflies, gardening, tractor pulls, tee ball, bbq’s, old records, cross-stitching, coffee shops with plain donuts and the funnies section with Gramps and his buddies, running in fields, Old Mill Dam river hiking, railroad tracks with cowboy silhouettes in the distance, sitting on a lap while we drove on backroads, train whistles in the distance through an open window on a warm night. James will never know those kinds of moments with his grandparents.
My tiny family gets smaller every year it seems, and all I want is to be happy with everyone. To find someone who’ll put a light back inside me so I can stop pretending it’s still there. I don’t mean that James doesn’t light me up; he does. But there are pieces missing from my heart now and I’m afraid they’re forever lost. I don’t see anyone or meet anyone (males, that is) that makes me feel like I want them let alone need them. All of them look like they’re going to be like all the others; letdowns. People who tell me they love me and in the next second shut down to me completely and wonder why I get angry when I ask them what’s wrong and know they’re lying when they say “nothing.” They get angry at me for assuming things, but when I ask they won’t give me an honest answer. I’m not a mind reader and I won’t try to be one.
I don’t think life is terrible; I think most of the people are rotten inside, I see how no one cares to preserve this planet so their future generations have happy healthy memories like they do. James is perfect, though. I want him to be educated so he will make positive differences; I fear the teen years because I know I was a shit and I know his father was a typical teen doing typical stupid teen things. It happens. If it happens to James, it will, but hopefully his intelligence will stick around and he’ll be better/above all of the bull shit.
I hope I light him up the way Mom did for me, but learning about motherhood on your own isn’t how it is suppose to go. My mom was alone for 27.5 years, 90 or so miles away from her mother, but her mother and father were alive into old age. If my mom didn’t know what to do or say, her parents had the knowledge and experience. I have surrogate parents and I’m thankful for them, but they are not the same.
So, what am I doing? Why do I care to know my family tree and see these names of people I will never know? Why do I care about their stories?
Because someone has to care. Because hopefully, one day, someone not born yet will wonder and come across my name in their tree. I might not have a story to tell, but maybe they’ll come across this random blip of internet space and see that a hundred or more years ago, emotions, thoughts, beliefs, ideals, and practices were basically the same.
Mostly, I just hope James cares. I hope when he suffers the loss of his mother, these silly blogs will help him somehow. Help him remember my voice, carry on the Moralez name, be proud of his royal lineages. I hope he is infinitely better than Josh and I combined, and reminds us humbly of that often with achievements we can gush about to everyone we know.
I think for Mother’s Day I’ll visit my mom.
O James, Who Art Thou? 