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It’s my first Mother’s Day without my mom. It’s pretty sad. I’m pretty sad. Like, don’t even really want to be reminded it’s Mother’s Day kind of sad. My son made me brownies (so many brownies! Lol) and got me a nice card, but I don’t want to go anywhere or do anything. My Ex sent me a card and a gift card, which was really thoughtful. My boyfriend has been really nice, extra loving and snuggles. But the truth is, this kind of sad doesn’t go away. I heard once that grief is like a suitcase and you have to pick it up every day. At first it’s like this huge trunk you can barely lift and you’re dragging it all around running out of breath and thinking there’s no way you can make it. And as time goes on, the bag gets smaller and smaller until it’s like a fanny pack you hardly notice at all – but you still have to pick it up every day. I’d say mine is somewhere between a full-size suitcase and over-sized mom purse. Today, it’s the suitcase – one someone like my mom would have packed full of useless, needless shit when going on a week long trip because what if she needed the coral shoes?

Me and my mom on my 21st Bday

Honestly, in the end, my mom wasn’t even my mom anymore. There were flashes, but she wasn’t really there. And for a while before that she was just mean. Just awful. But now we know that is one of the beginning signs of the Alzheimer’s. If the cancer hadn’t taken her, I’m pretty sure that would have soon enough. No, I’m not going to her grave today. I don’t do that. She’s not there. If anything, I’d drive out to Bryceville to my granny and papa’s and sit down in one of their flowerbeds. If she’s wandering around down here, it would be somewhere like that.

But I hope she’s not.

I hope she’s giving this whole life thing another go. I hope she comes back to a middle-aged couple who’ve been trying forever to have a baby and then out of nowhere they are blessed with a baby girl and love the shit out of her. Love her and raise her with manners and kindness and she finds a man who loves her like my dad in the end the entire time they’re together. A man who she never has to look at and wonder if he loves her and a better daughter who never fights with her in the kitchen over a stupid boy because for the love of God, she deserves it. She really does.

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Piece I wrote last year when my mom died. Thought I’d go ahead and share. It’s long, but worth the read.

Last night I had a very philosophical conversation with my boyfriend. It started innocent and simple, and turned into this profound idea that had been right in front of me with all the secrets to the universe in it…okay, that’s going a bit far. But it will forever change the way I look at the world around me. And it all started with one question.

What’s your favorite color?

Now I’m sure you’ve taken a test online, ‘what’s your color’ or been given some test at work and then assigned colors to be classified in. That’s fine. Those are all well and good. That’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about the first decision you ever get to make. The first question you will ever be asked that you will answer honestly only once before the onslaught of the world starts to influence your thoughts. What’s your favorite color? You will be asked when you’re two or three and what you say that very first time, is just an honest answer to a question. You haven’t had time to think about it, or mull over why or any of the overthinking that every second of this life calls for you to do. It’s just your three-year-old self. What’s your favorite color? Now. The REAL question is, can you still say the same color today?

I’m sure you’re wondering what kind of conversation could have brought this on. I will tell you as best I can remember as it’s now 10:00 the next day and I’ve honestly had little to no sleep. My mom passed away last week. Well, last week as I’m writing this. It was on 11/28/18 for the sake of whoever is reading this and whenever you are. I’d said I wanted to take a night and try and find some peace about it, meditate if you will, and my boyfriend who is honest-to-God up for anything, bless his heart, was right there with me. So, I was in the middle of telling him this story about my grandfather buying me this yellow and white furniture when I was kid and how yellow was just sort of always there so it became my favorite color. And, let me tell ya, in 1980something, doing anything out of the ordinary was met with confusion at best and flat out condemnation at worst. This included a child telling these kids who all said blue, green or red that yellow was her favorite color.

What? Yellow? Why?

Well, I didn’t know why – it just was. My boyfriend OF OVER A YEAR is just letting me talk and then sort of sits down and says, ‘Yellow was my favorite color too.’ I’m thinking he’s just being silly so I’m all, whatever and he says, “No – really – but I changed it. I changed my favorite color. I’ve never told anyone else that.”

WHAT? THAT’S NOT A THING! Is what I think. But then the truth of him and life and foundations and the weight of untold thanks just like, broke open in my mind. This man let life make him change his favorite color. Now, I love my boyfriend – but he’s been through some shit in his life and tends to shy away (cower in corner) from life when it gets hard. He doesn’t like to deal with things head on at all. He will do everything in his power, whether that is avoid someone or go out of his way to make sure they’re happy, to avoid confrontation. And I’m looking at him saying this to me, giving me his most truthful truth, and at first I start to think – yep, this is what’s wrong with you. You’re a pussy and you didn’t stand up to life and say, fuck you green – yellow is my favorite color and I don’t care what you say.

The truth about me is I tend to seem pretty judgey. And I’m really not. I’m just constantly trying to understand things and classify them so it helps if I can put you in a category. This comes off as judging – it’s not. It’s like a mental filing cabinet.

So, I’m sitting there filing him and then – it may as well have been a tap on the shoulder and actual whispers in my ear – I hear/think: well look at everything that happened to him. Think about him as a little boy, going from foster home to foster home and back to wherever he would end up and just trying to be small and invisible so someone would love him and let him stay. He would’ve done anything. And if yellow seemed like it might ruffle some feathers, he would’ve switched to blue or green in a heartbeat. And look at me. Look at someone who had a rock-solid foundation with the fear of failure removed from her life. It wasn’t that I was so much better because I didn’t let life change my color. It was, the people holding me were so strong that I didn’t for a second think, what if yellow is wrong and I shouldn’t say yellow. No. I thought, well I’m choosing yellow and I don’t care what you all think. And if it turned out that I’d been wrong for some reason, I knew I could say ‘Haha just kidding’ and lay back down on my strong foundation and quickly build myself up from it. Whereas someone like my boyfriend didn’t have anywhere to lay down and rebuild from.

So, here I am. With this life philosophy and parental revelation sitting on me and I’m not even sure what to do about it other than just to write it all down for you. To try and categorize my thoughts and feelings into some semblance of recognizable concept. It’s like he kept telling me, we’re all connected. It’s like this delicate game of dominoes eternity has been playing with all of us and everything knocks over everything else. Be good parents, and raise kids who never feel like they have to change their goddamn color, so they can grow up to be parents who love their kids enough to make sure they never…do you see the cycle here? But it has to start somewhere. Like, a cosmic ‘NOPE’ card (this card game my kid taught me has nope cards and when you have one you can ‘nope’ the move of the person who went before you). So think of this as a cosmic ‘NOPE’ card and the dominoes are reset right now. Right this second – for your lineage. Everyone who will ever be because of you is changed starting now. The second you decide to be that parent. The second you decide that your kid is worth keeping the same favorite color without having to compromise.

And think of how this world could be if we had a bunch of those kids running things. Not a bunch of scared little boys who bought into this whole ‘fake it until you make it’ bullshit, have everyone fooled and have no business running ANYTHING much less countries – think if we had a bunch of kids who’d grown up without the fear of failure, without the overwhelming need to conform, to comprise. And we’re so far past a favorite color right now. We’re at Row V Wade and equal rights and Martin Luther King saying fuck.this.shit. Saying, this needs to change and having the courage as a human being to stand up and make that change. Take it back to the most simple question and I guarantee that every single one of those people, every person who ever made a damn bit of difference, did not let life change their favorite color.

So, what about you?

What about your kids?

Makes you think. Doesn’t it?

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