I’ve been slacking.

It’s horrible. I know.

I need to be writing and instead I’m baking cakes for baby showers and birthdays. I’m making incredibly crafty diaper cakes and going shopping for things for my new nephew.

It’s been good to have something else going on to keep my mind off what it keeps wandering to.

Oddly, at a time when I least expected it, it all came pouring out.

I cried.

I pretty much melted in my husband’s aunts presence.

And she listened. She supported and she told me “You need to get it out.”

And she was absolutely right.

The oddest part of it, was that I hadn’t even seen or talked to this aunt in several years. But seeing her at the baby shower on Sunday, and having her acknowledge that she knew about my mom it instantly broke me.

No one talks to me about my mom anymore. They pretty much talk to me about anything else but avoid the whole fact that I even had a mother, let alone one that passed away. But Aunt Pam wanted to tell me that she was sorry to hear about it, and then she wanted to know how it happened and where it was. She’s got cancer too. Similar cancer to what my mom had only they caught hers early. It started in her bone and they found it and she now has titanium rods in her leg that help her get around. She had the same cancer as Terry Fox and we both marveled at how only a short time ago that would’ve meant a complete amputation.

She understood what I had to say. She was there. More than there, she understood completely about my other heartache.

The one that people don’t even realize hurts the most.

The fact that I wasn’t able to fulfill my mother’s dying wish and how much it hurts every single day.

I didn’t want to dwell on it. I was at a baby shower after all. And I’m so happy for my sister-in-law and the baby she’s carrying.

But it was so hard to not acknowledge that the only thing my mother asked of me when she was diagnosed was “Any news on the baby front?”

And there I was pouring all this out to Aunt Pam.

I even told her about the extra heartache I had at my sisters house this week when reading the card she got form my dad. He had handwritten inside “Thank you for giving me grandchildren.”

When I read it, I felt my heart sink. I felt like a failure.

Aunt Pam completely understood. She admitted that she wanted children so bad, but at 33 she had to have a complete hysterectomy. Her own secret reason for why she never had kids. She told me that I could do so many other things and to not stress about it. If it was meant to be it will be, something my mother admitted to me the day I took her to chemo and told her about my troubles and how disappointed I was in myself.

Around the time of my mothers funeral, I had a conversation with someone, sadly I cannot remember who. And they told me that the things that I would rely on my mother for, I would find myself relying on other people. They told me that they knew it would be hard for me to believe at the time, but that it would come. I had so many great people around me. I always assumed the people that would stand up and help me would be in my immediate family. What I find so funny about that now is that they are all hurting so much, missing my mom so much, that they need someone to step in my mom’s role too. They can’t support me and help me through my grief, pain and disappointment, because they are going through the exact same things.

But I’ve been amazed by how much compassion I’ve been shown by people that may not have ever known my mom. I’ve had people stand up and support me that I never would’ve ever thought to ask.

And so I really want to thank Aunt Pam for talking to me privately. For listening. For caring and understanding and taking the time to actually look me in the eye and talk to me about something so difficult rather than toss it under the rug and say “Oh if she wanted to talk about it, she would.”

I’m sick and tired of people not talking to me because they feel that I’ll cry.

It’s okay to cry and it’s okay to say something and make me cry. I didn’t give up mascara because I didn’t want to cry.

Grieving is a life long process. I did some reading and forwarded some things to my husband so that he could understand it too. Sometimes, it’s a life long process. People that have also lost a parent have told me that over time it hurts less but the hurt will still be there. They suggested that I don’t shy away from it and to talk about her as much as I can. They told me that it’s good to remember the good times and laugh away the bad.

I do not want to forget about her.

I do not want to forget about my mom.

Don’t let me forget about my mom.