Tangled in a World Wide Web

With the approach of the holidays, I find myself in the familiar and unenviable position of being torn between all the blessings I should be thankful for and remembering that this is my first ever Thanksgiving without my mom. This is complicated by the fact that this week also marks the seven month anniversary of her death. Hard to imagine. My mom loved the holidays. The food, the fellowship, the family, the food. So many things remind me of her. So many little things. This will be an event. We are going to go to my sister's as I have most years when I could. Eating in the same place we had Thanksgiving last year with my mom. I don't know how to prepare for this. I don't like being ill prepared. Much less unprepared. I am writing this mostly as a cathartic exercise in hopes it will help. I am not fooled. I am not naive. Maybe a little desperate. I am trying not to imagine Christmas. That is a whole other ball game. And it falls on the eight month anniversary of my mom...

Three weeks after my last post, I lost my mom, quite suddenly. It's been nearly four months and I am no closer to understanding, no closer to acceptance, and certainly no closer to OK. This, just two weeks before my beautiful daughter was born. Mom had been so excited about my first child. A child no one ever expected. A grandchild she had given up on. (Yes, she has four awesome and monstrously talented grandkids she saw daily, but none from me.) At forty-five (when we found out) no one was as surprised as I was. No one was more excited than my mom. Every time I talked to her, she asked (usually her first words) "do we have a baby yet". The last time I called (the night before the morning I got "the call" was no exception. I told her soon. We talked about how we would get up there as soon as we could after so she could see the baby. I told her I would call her again soon. She sounded tired and I didn't want to aggravate an already delicate balance. (Another...

So, maybe I am a slacker. I was gonna send my mom flowers on Mother's Day and I had found a beautiful arrangement that was perfect. It was the perfect colors and I was excited about it. It was about $42 and I knew there would be other charges. I even added an option that took it up about another $5. When I started to check out, it jumped up to about $65. I thought, "Damn! Do I really want to spend that much on something that will rot in about a week?" I decided to hold off. Long story short, I tried again later, decided WTF.  It was now gonna cost $85. I just couldn't do it. Sorry Mom. Now, this doesn't mean that I don't think my mom is worth that amount. It just means I don't think dead flowers are worth that much.  Sometimes it's just Goodbye... After giving up on that plan, I found a great gift - one I've been halfway keeping an eye on for a while. It was a digital frame that was large (800x600), took all kinds of memory cards and a USB cable an...