meds and escapes

We still have my mom's old pain medication sitting around. I haven't thrown it out yet. Not for any reason in particular except that it's difficult to do. To throw it away would make everything so much more final. To sort through her things, to give items away, to pack up and clean up the life she left behind.

Sometimes I have the urge to just go and drink all that is left of her oxycodone. To mix it with the anti-anxiety medication they gave her and just...just what? What do I hope to accomplish? To end everything that she put her life into building? That would be pointless...that would be an affront, a disrespect to her life, period.

I still think about it.

I've been a lot better lately, since my dad's birthday actually. We went out to the city, and spent the day there. I took him to the East River, showed him Renwick's, we went to the Norwegian Seamen's Church and witnessed a wedding, and then walked around Central Park. I don't think I've ever seen him so happy or carefree...at least in a long time. Maybe not since...since my favorite Christmas ever, in '06, when my mom and he and I went to see the tree at Rockefeller Center. More like we stumbled on it...

But while we were at the Norwegian church, there was a stool with a white satin cloth draped over it. We found out later it was meant to place the wedding cake on. But while the ceremony took place, it stood there, empty, with just that white cloth draped over it. And when I looked at it, it reminded me SO much of my mother that it was almost as though...as though I could reach out and touch her or like a de ja vu...you know when you see something that tugs at a memory that's just below the surface? Everything about that cloth was so...Mom. And finally, when I couldn't take it anymore, I turned to my dad and asked him if the cloth reminded him of anything.

He gave me a look, and then without reservation, said "Mommy."

How ironic is that?

Then, to make it even more....amazing....about halfway through the wedding ceremony I looked over at it again and it didn't remind me of her anymore. I tried studying the fall of the cloth, the folds and the design...nothing.

I was afraid to say anything in case my "spirit" couldn't pick up on it anymore, but when the ceremony was over, my dad turned to me and said, "do you notice you don't feel anything from over there anymore?"

SHE WAS THERE. 

She had to have been. And that's had me feeling so much better, so comforted, lately.

I'm almost okay. 

Most of the time.