Looking over the last month, it would be easy to say it's been a month of bad days. Easy, but not entirely accurate. I've spent a lot of those days sick, in pain, or medicated to the point of being non-functional; however, there have been good days scattered among the trying ones. Why do we allow the not-so-great to very often overshadow the positive in our lives?
Today I decided to take advantage of the fact that I was already miserable to take on a very unpleasant task I have been avoiding for a year now. When I arrived in Pennsylvania and moved my boxes that contain all my worldly posessions into Dad's Storage unit, aka the garage, I handed him a box and asked him to put it somewhere that I didn't have to see it or deal with it until I was ready. What was in the box, you ask? As Randy Travis would say, it was a box of bones, "memories of a love that's dead and gone". Engagement and wedding pictures that remind me of nothing but failure.
There is my point. When I look at these photos, all I see is a girl who should have known better but didn't. I see a guy that, quite honestly, I feel sorry for. I used to feel hate, contempt, anger. Lately, those have been replaced by indifference and pity. The girl in those pictures, the girl I used to be, felt none of those things. She thought she was starting out on a life-long adventure with the man of her dreams. It would be simple to focus on the bad and the painful. But if I hadn't gone through that, I would never have known the joy of being the mother (yes, I know, I wasn't really her mother) of the most wonderful little girl in the world.
As I look at my favorite snapshot from that day, I see 2 girls: one only 5, one the wise old age of 26. Both of them are decked out in gorgeous white dresses, sparkling tiaras fit for the princesses they are, and bright smiles. She was the joy of my life, the center of my world. Everything revolved around being her mother. It was more pleasant to focus on the relationship that came easy since nothing about the relationship with her father was unaffected.
Now, five long years later, I'm facing another Mothers' Day, still without my mother. Now without either of my grandmothers and without a daughter. I have no one to celebrate this holiday with or for. I wonder sometimes if she was my only chance for motherhood. Sure, I have Mitzi, but spoiled as she is, a pound puppy just can't take the place of a daughter. Looking through these photos made me realize once again that my life is forever changed. I can't go back. As painful as those 4 years were as Mrs. L, I wouldn't trade them for anything because the 4 years of being E's mama were the greatest gift I've ever had.
With that, I go to bed tonight smiling through the tears, looking at the good instead of the bad, and hoping with all my heart that tomorrow is not another day like this. I don't know how many more my heart can take.
