Empty spots in your heart

I thought for a while about writing about my Mom passing. Initially, it was too painful. Too chaotic. Everything was so jumbled in my head. It was difficult to process or put together coherent thoughts. It happened so fast. I couldn't process her being gone.

Still can't really.

But I feel like it might help. Maybe a relief valve of sorts, to let some of it out.

I still hear her voice, calling me "Stevie." I keep thinking I'll see her later when we grab dinner with her and Dad. Then I realize I'll never see her again. Never talk to her, get to hug her. Hear the same "Steve who?" joke when I'd call on the phone. Hear her say I'm her favorite when we both know she's joking. But it's our joke.

So strange now that I look back. I start to remember all those times, things seemed a little off. I didn't think it meant anything. Not that I would know it was cancer, but I can see now where it had been eating away at her. So small, day by day, that none of us noticed. 

Maybe she did. My family is epic for not necessarily saying when we are hurting. Maybe she knew something was up, but didn't want the attention. Didn't want to burden anyone with the knowledge of what was gnawing away at her body. What was coming.

It started as blood test results, maybe spots on the liver. Next day it was large masses on the liver. Next day it was inoperable. Next day was hospice. Next day she was gone. Five days.

We had five days to process that and lose her.

Funny too. She called it. I didn't hear this until after she had passed. But she was talking with Shelby on Friday in the hospital once we heard it was inoperable. Shelby told us she said she was ready. She was 82. She wasn't afraid. Doctors said she might last days, maybe weeks. But she told Shelby she would be gone in two days. That was on a Friday. She passed that Sunday ... two days later.

She went to sleep once we got to hospice on Saturday and never woke up. She slept, mostly peacefully. Occasionally she would start to rouse, I guess due to pain. The nurses would come in, give her something and she would drift off. But she never did wake up and talk to us. Once we moved from the hospital where they were medicating her to keep her conscious, to the hospice where they just wanted to make her comfortable, we never got to talk anymore.

I will always remember, thanks to Lisa's fantastic idea, playing Elvis Presley music for her there at the end on my phone. I sat it on the pillow next to her ear. And I held her hand. Ironically, she drew her last breath as Heartbreak Hotel played.

I listen to Elvis quite a bit now. I always have, but more so now. It helps me feel close to her. She introduced me to Elvis when I was young. She'd put his albums on our old LP player, the huge consolidated cabinet kind - I think it used to have a TV in it. She put him on and blast it through the house. "I'm Your Little Teddy Bear" was one of my first favorites. Hers too. But I listened to the whole discography. I think Elvis' rendition of "My Way" is one of my all-time favorites. That and "Suspicious Minds," "Kentucky Rain," and "Burning Love." She was going to take me when I was a kid to see him in concert. His tour was scheduled to make a stop at the Norfolk Scope Arena in Virginia. But he died in August 1977 before he could make it to Norfolk. I was 13.

Elvis will always be my connection to Mom. I remember when we took Mary, Lisa's Mom, to Graceland to visit Elvis' home and the museum. I think I was as excited as Mary. She and I were like kids in a candy store. Lisa was very patient. God bless her. Mom had gone a few years earlier with Dad and talked about how much she enjoyed it. Dad was very patient. God bless him, too.

I still feel very raw, like I haven't worked through the majority of the pain. There has been so much change in Lisa's and my life right now. I started a new job in North Georgia. We are trying to sell our home in Pace and move. So much is in flux, I don't know how much pain is still lurking below the surface. Just waiting for a chance to squeak out.

I do feel a constant ache. Like there's a hole, a wound in my heart, that never heals. It never gets smaller, never seems to fade away. It just sits there and stares at me. And, now I hear all those songs on the radio. The ones I didn't pay much attention to before, about making time to call your mom, spend time with your dad. Now I understand. Too little, too late.

But I did tell her, there at her beside, right after she was gone that I would make her proud. She may not be here physically, but I sense her with me all the time now. Maybe that will help with the absence. I guess it'll have to.