This Time Last Year

Trepidation. I think that's how I would best describe the attitude with which Gwennie and I approached Thanksgiving this year. As we crept through October, without our even realizing, emotions became more and more fragile and tears a regular occurrence. There's always a certain sadness that comes with the leaves changing. Someone more well-studied than I might disagree, but "back to school" always reminds me that I'm one year farther away from my youth, when things were simple. And now fall has new meaning: it's when Mom became a hospice patient. Crunching over leaves reminds me of navigating her wheelchair along the paths at McLean this time last year. I went to open a trunk full of blankets the other day and burst in to tears, because there was the prayer shawl my mother started wearing daily this time last year. Now I'm pulling out holiday decorations, that in almost two weeks from this time last year, I will have packed up from her room. This time last year, I was celebrating Thanksgiving with my mother.

My days are compartmentalized in to what exactly I was doing this time last year. This time last year I was hunting for socks that wouldn't make her feet swell by day, and writing her memorial program by night. This time last year I was hanging on by a thread, desperately seeking answers I would never get. It is all such a blur to me.

Now that I've realized my rocky days are related to my "this time last year," I've embraced it. Because in a few short week, "this time last year" won't exist. And I'll welcome that more than you can imagine.

And Thanksgiving was amazingly easy, perhaps because Gwennie and I have so much to be thankful for.

We've settled on a memorial weekend to celebrate Mom. Gwennie and Chantel are coming to Boston to spend the weekend with Matthew and I. We'll shop, we'll brunch, we'll listen to the electronica New Age holiday tunes of Manheim Steamroller that Mom loved. We'll no doubt watch White Christmas multiple times, and maybe even throw in A Christmas Story, to which she always responded "garbage in, garbage out." We'll make our traditional politically correct holiday cookies and eat fondue. And because she would love to hate this... we're getting memorial tattoos. Oh yes. Mom, I am getting a tattoo.

And then perhaps, I may lay this blog to rest. I think it's time. There will be no more "this time last year." Thank goodness.

Thanksgiving, 2009