Saturday, December 5, 2009 – 12:57am – Beddinghampshire, Burnaby, BC

Today is the one-year anniversary of my Mom’s death. A whole year has already gone by. It seems to have passed in the blink of an eye.

I still think about her and talk about her a lot. I look at her pictures on the refrigerator and on the shelves in my room and living room. Sometimes, I lean over and kiss the one on the side of the fridge and tell her I love her. I still get the urge to call her when I’m heading home from work or when the Saints game is over, so I can tell her they won.

Mercifully, I have fewer bad dreams that involve hospitals, funeral homes and the knowledge of my Mom’s impending death. I don’t cry about it nearly as much, either, though I do find myself more often choking back tears when I’m on the bus or SkyTrain for some reason I haven’t quite figured out.

All things considered, I think I have come a helluva long way in the past 12 months. I could barely leave the house. I was STILL in the hellish relationship with Tracey. I didn’t have many friends up here. I wasn’t working outside the house. I was beyond devastated about the death of my Mom and for a good while, felt like dying was a good alternative to living in such agonizing pain.

Now, I have been on meds for the anxiety and depression for about six months. I feel like a normal human being the vast majority of the time.  I can cope better. I am finally free of the chains of emotional slavery that was my relationship with Tracey. I know I have made the right decision. I am working outside the house and am making new friends.

I am dreading going to the cemetery when I am in Mississippi for Christmas. I am sure I am going to totally lose it. I think it will be worse, though, when she has a headstone out there and I will walk up and see her name and her date of death etched in stone – literally. I am going to go to a few headstone places while I’m there and talk to them and get some prices. I may end up getting a single stone for now and then getting the double thing later on when I can afford to get the spot next to her. I will talk to them about it and compare the prices. It really bothers me that I haven’t been able to get her one yet.

I am going to call my Aunt Betty and talk to her for a while. Haven’t talked to her in a long time.

I wonder if I’m the only one who remembers that today is the day my Mom died. Somehow, that thought makes me really sad.