Kids, Craft and Chaos

It's been almost four months since my mum died.

In so many ways it feels like yesterday and in other ways it feels like an impossibly long time ago. I've been ticking along quite nicely being all very grown up about it. We made decisions about funerals, we emptied the house, we put the house in the market. I have read letters and cards and emails and talked to mum's friends and for the most part managed it without too many tears.

And then there are the other days, the other moments where being normal and doing everyday things are beyond impossible. The moment when the person I passed in the supermarket who smells just like mum and I feel like I've been punched and can't quite figure out what I'm meant to be doing and trying to keep it together so the girls don't get upset.

My ipod shuffling to her favourite songs on the drive home from work and I can barely see the road in front of me. The fact that I can't breathe or think.

The girls losing teeth, learning songs, starting school again, the funny things they say. The way I reach automatically for the phone to text her the minutiae of my life, because only a mum and granny would care about the inconsequential rubbish that will quickly be forgotten. The pictures of the girls that would make her laugh, who do I send them to now?

There are things I want to do, ideas I have. Ideas i'd normally talk to mum about. Just talk them over, talk around them and then go off and decide what to do. Everything from holidays to my hair, I don't know who I chat to about these things anymore. I keep saying to myself, "oh, I'll ask mum about that when I see her..." I feel like I'm saving up all my questions and it's becoming a weight around my neck.

I miss the calls on my days off to go for a coffee. The "I'll get the girls from school" moments. The nights at her house where the girls rampage to her room in the morning not mine. The not worryin about being strict on sweets and cakes because granny would ensure they got treats and could relax and be muddy.

The moment I realised that her Facebook account wasn't there any more. That she's still connected via my LinkedIn account and I don't know how to deal with that.

And these are just the little things, we haven't faced the big days yet- Christmas, birthdays, her birthday, new babies, weddings, parties...

In many ways I am still pretending that nothing has changed. But there has never been a time in my life where I would have gone so long without talking to never mind seeing my mum. I know she's gone, that nothing can change that but I'm not really ready to accept that. So if you see me crying, angry or oddly quiet I'm just trying to figure out a way around this big empty space in my life.

There is a great big empty space in my life and nothing will ever fill it. I'm sure I'll get used to it being there but how do you ever fill the gap where your mum should be?