Journaling to my Mother In Law who died on February 15 2013

You Mom, the way I want to remember you!

Dear Mom,

I am struggling now because I am realizing that it is coming up on 6 months since your death and I am trying to get a memory book going better but I need to really open up and do more journaling.  I read the letter from the Hospice Center and I have a book I need to start reading, " Saying Goodbye (Facing the Loss of a Loved One)"  by Cecil Murphy and Gary Roe with beautiful paintings by Michael Sparks.  

I started with my First Tribute to you...  http://conversationswithcarolyn.blogspot.com/2013/03/first-tribute-to-my-mother-in-law.html

Today I just want to tell you how very hard it is for me to start this process of letting go.  I think that having your ashes here and my belief system being broader than just the Christian faith (religious right) that I was raised with, confuses the crap outta me.  I know that you're not at the nursing home anymore, but your ashes you know are in an urn in the closet in the guestroom and I can still hold on as long as they are there.


I like that.  I still want more significance to happen to your life.  We haven't even told John's cousins yet and we need to do that.  I think that I would like to start on the 15th of this month with a newspaper clipping in our paper that we share with everyone.  It was too hard at the time to know what to put in the announcement.   So we'll start there.  And in the meantime, I will continue to write my journal to you and the memory book and try to start my scrapbook to you.

I love and miss you and one thing that I want to say that I couldn't handle was going into that room and seeing your sunken eyes and when Sandie jumped on your bed on you like she always used to do and landed on you and made you scream in pain.   I am so sorry, she's a dog as you know and didn't know any better.   We were hoping she could say goodbye to you.  When I saw you on oxygen and everyone wanted me to say goodbye, I couldn't.  I felt like Hospice was trying to end your life and I was angry at the timing.  We never told you that John was in the hospital for having some of his bowel removed because they didn't want him to get what you had colon cancer.
You didn't even die from that... the coroner said "old age" and you were 90 and I kept wanting to think you were just 80 and I was trying to claim those years back and you were asking God to take you home all the time.  I'm sorry.

By the way, I'm still crying as hard as I did the day that I came in your room and saw you and gasped and said out loud that I couldn't believe this was happening.  And my trying to make the process of what Hospice was doing or not doing to stop and let me take over because I didn't think they knew what was best for you.  I have a lot of anger at them still and I have a lot of work to do with that anger.  I think the more I cry the better I feel.

Love, Carolyn