Let me tell you a story about June 8th. Once upon a time Dan and I had set out to get married at one of our favorite places on the Jersey Shore. It was called Martell’s Waters’ Edge and it was your quintessential beach town wedding venue. Complete with rocking tables that swayed when the docks moved, panoramic views of the Barnegat bay, a baby grand piano, an atrium/greenhouse style room for happy hour, and all the beach rock, drift wood and sand a girl could ever imagine for pictures. The view was beautiful and the water front aisle I was supposed to walk down was wind-y and paved with more beautifulness I could have ever dreamed up. Our deposit was down, our save the dates were out and we were in the thick of planning a beach wedding from afar. Until hurricane Sandy hit and washed away this beautiful place with so many of my very wedding dreams. We wound up changing the town from Bayville to Glenville. The state from New Jersey to New York. And the date from June 8th to June 7th. We married at the Light House at Waters’ Edge. Coincidences? Absolutely not. 
As we approach the one year anniversary of my mother’s passing I can’t help but feel a different, very hollowing sense of nostalgia. I feel helpless in trying to feel good about this day in particular as this was the day my mother entered the hospital. We were told the most terrifying, earth shattering news, but we clung to hope and our faith. The days’ events were brutal. Though not as brutal as her last day on earth. I can’t help but use my sense of spirituality to determine now why I was never to wed on June 8th. Because who would ever want to share such a happy day with such saddening and life altering news. If it was God, an act of nature, or a contract I signed with somebody up above before I arrived here that this was my life plan, I’ll never know. What I do know is this is another one of those moments that haven’t made sense to me until almost exactly a year later. Especially today, when I saw this picture on my Facebook memories asking for prayers and white healing light. 

What a beautiful, wonderful mountain of a woman she was.
Flashes of her breathing pop in and out of my head. When we were asked to stand on the other side of the curtain, as if that would protect us somehow. I wish they just asked us to leave the hospital at that point. Dan and I had spent the night, her final night, the night before. Somehow when they told us we had to leave at 6am for a little while, I found my way back home to my parents’ house and Dan found his way to our baby. Before I knew it, it was 10am and I was in the shower getting ready to head back to the hospital. I heard my mother clear as day inside my head talking to me. I hate that she couldn’t talk. I felt helpless that day. Like I had been beat at the most excruciating game. Like I was watching a puppy get kicked to death. Like I wanted to cry because it was just so unfair that there was nothing I could do but hold her hand, sing to her as she took her last breaths and try my hardest to save this in a part of my brain that one day I could shovel out and dump away into the garbage because nobody should have to witness something so absolutely horrifying. I wanted to protect her and everyone in that room watching. And listening. Listening was just as hard. I remember trying to drown out the sounds and that’s why I sang. Try as hard as I might, these images and sounds are still at the tip of my brain. Some nights I have to keep my eyes open so that my brain can stop thinking about it. I ask her to take these images from me, and I know if she could she would. And I try to forget them myself, but things that disturbing aren’t so soon forgotten. 

Today I stand strong as a different person then I was almost a year ago. I’m broken, and cynical, I’m stronger and optimistic. I wish happiness and health for other people and my heart actually breaks when I hear of anyone losing someone close to them. I offer different variations of comfort now. Unfortunately I know what to do in these situations of absolute despair. Today I still shake my head in disbelief when I make the realization for the 349th day in a row that my mother is gone. Today I still feel like I need her here. Today I mourn my mother in ways that are positive for me, and for the people who understand what that means. 
Any day now, I will bring new life into this world. A new soul, one that I’m certain my mom is holding right now. A little tiny soul that has been touched by my mother. What a gift for me that God has blessed me with; to witness the complete circle of life, in the same month, almost down to the exact day, inside the same year I lost my favorite girl.