It’s Not Your Story

By: Lynn Summers

I have been away from blogging for a while now.   It’s not something I intentionally avoided doing.  It was something I just did not seem to have the time to do.  I have all these thoughts in my head, but a large part of me says, who cares, no one wants to hear what’s in your head.  And to be honest, a lot of times I don’t want to hear what is in my head either, but this topic has weighed on my mind a lot lately so I felt it would help me if I put it in writing.

I know I have talked a lot about the death of my mom and the grief I suffer from it. I also keep thinking over and over that no one wants to read about my grief, but honestly, this is a huge part of my life so if the grief is on my mind, then that is what I write about and of course, it’s on my mind.

I have had a pretty good summer. My birthday was hard; I seemed to be very upset that day with missing my mom.  I have had good days and bad, more good than bad, but overall, it has come in waves and I have been able to maintain that.  I am trying to do what my mom told me to do, which is live the best life I can.  Cherish her good memories, but also take the grief and turn it into love and happiness.  That is a lot harder said than done for sure, but I have tried and I think sometimes I have failed and sometimes I have succeeded.

To be 100 percent honest, I have noticed that I actually get angry at people who still have moms. I hear people talk about their mom or their family and I get mad.  I hear my own husband talk to his mom and I get mad.  I am mad that I don’t have a mom, yet others do.  And it has nothing to do with who has a good or a bad mom, it’s just a mom.  And I know I can say this about dads and spouses and children and everything else, but remember, I am writing about my story.  Not that your story is not relevant because it 100 percent is, but this is my experience.

So I had to take a step back. I found myself in a fit about a month ago literally crying and asking my dad why I don’t have a mom.  Asking my dad why that part of my life is over?  And it really is.  The thought that I will no longer on this earth have my parent with me is hard to overcome, very hard and it comes at me all the time.  But, after I put myself back together, thought about it for a long time and realized I was being childish the thought came into my head that hit hard, but put me into a place I need to be:  It’s not your story.

I’ve always pictured my life as a book. My book is laid out all pretty and in my book I see things that will happen.  I could totally see me being married with three girls; it was not surprising to me.  I could always see me being a screw up a lot of times who redeemed herself.  I could always see me being successful in my career.  What I never, ever saw, was that my story had my mom not in it.

My story went like this: My dad would die first.  I would help take care of my mom.  My mom would live a long time, maybe die when I was in my 70s.  It would be expected by then.  Now this isn’t saying I love my dad less.  I don’t.  But my dad will even tell you, it would be him to die first, not the person who had absolutely no medical issues.

My story continued that I would be carting my mom around to the casino, to dinner, to family gatherings. She would be the sweet little old lady that everyone would love.  This is my story.  See, the problem lies in that I made my own story.  That was not my story.  My story is that I suddenly was thrown into a situation where I had to make decisions, see and do things that I never, ever in a million years thought I would have to, nor thought I would be able to.  My story is that I had to grow up.  That I never knew how much a child I was until I was forced to not be one.  My story is that I do not have a mom, nor SHOULD I have a mom anymore.

That’s a hard one, I am not meant to have a mom. How dare someone say I don’t deserve a mom?  That was my first thought, but the truth is, it wasn’t about deserving a mom, it was about having one.  My story is that I wasn’t meant to have a mom with me on earth anymore because that was not God’s plan because in my mom’s story, she was meant to die when she did.

It’s hard to grasp this. It’s incredibly hard.  It takes a ton of faith and honestly a lot of courage and I will tell you that I don’t always do well with it.  I find myself crying a lot in the car when I drive to work because it’s my only place I feel I can kind of let it free.  I found myself beating the hell out of my seat the other day for a minute because I was just mad that I struggling.  Struggling with myself, struggling to make sure my family is happy and healthy, struggling to make sure my dad is okay, struggling to just make sure everything is just okay.  In that process a lot of times, I lose me and I find myself looking around saying, it’s not fair.  But it is fair, it is right, it is meant to be.

So that is where I am, I am here, I am doing good and sometimes, I am doing bad. I am trying to live the best life I can and be the best person I can be.  I fail a lot, but I also see seeds of success.  My book is not over and it will never match what I have in my mind of what it should be, but I will continue to face my challenges head on and continue to remind myself that what I am handed is what is meant to be, no matter how bad it hurts.

This blog originally appeared on the writers blog https://functionaldysfunction2017.wordpress.com/

Lynn lost her mom last year at the age of 65 suddenly of cancer. She has been married for 16 years and has three daughters 14, 12 and 5. She works in the nuclear power industry and owns a business called MomsOnWineDesign on Facebook that is therapeutic and has helped her with her grief. Her blog is a mash up of her crazy life and how she deals with her grief.

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3 thoughts on “It’s Not Your Story

  1. Thank you for writing about your story. There are most of "us" – motherless children, than I ever thought there would be.
    I lost my mom last year on 11/15. She was 65 and was diagnosed with cancer only a month before. It’s like you’re writing about my life, except I’m single with no children. I FEEL this post <3

  2. Lost my momma 18 years ago…still feels like my story git all messed up somewhere ? I really related to this thank you

  3. Thank you for sharing your unique perspective on losing your Mom. I lost my Mom in 2001, my brother in 1988 and my Father in 1975 when I was 11. But your words … it was their stories … apart from mine. That makes sense to me. But still it hurts sometimes, as you well know. I’ve read that grief is the price for loving someone, and I will never stop loving them. Who was it who wrote: "It is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all?"

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