My dad’s pocket knife.
A piece of small branch.
Me sitting on a small boulder in the middle of a low gently flowing river whittling away.
I couldn’t have been more than 6 or 7. That is my fondest childhood memory. Something simple, peaceful and out in nature. I am my best person when I am outside. So how at this point in my life am I still in a job I don’t love or really like and I live in a house that isn’t mine?
My smart, beautiful, amazing and loving momma passed away on February 2 of this year. She passed with her husband and children all around her, loving her. No matter how surrounded by love my momma was at the end…it still sucks. I can barely type these words because they still seem so unreal.
I was fortunate enough to have my momma Gina for almost 44 years. Life is now totally messed up.
I don’t know how to move forward. My dad is lost. I am lost. I am ready to move out of my parents house. It’s been almost 6 months since she has passed. My mom would say to move out and move forward. My dad on the other hand wants me to stay. I worry about him being alone. Is six months long enough to leave a grieving parent after the other one passes? My siblings say to move out as I need privacy and dad needs to get used to life with out someone in the house all the time. But they are not here at all hours of the day seeing the look of confusion and loss on his face. It is heartbreaking.
For my own good I need to move on from this house. I look in the mirror and do not even recognize myself.
I miss the outdoors. I don’t go hiking much these days. I have been backpacking once since February and was so grossly out of shape that it was embarrassing.
I have to find my way back to my passions. I am bushwhacking through life right now. I have all the gear to forge a path but no motivation to do it. The grief/depression has a grip that I cannot wrestle myself from underneath. Maybe it will leave me when I leave this house.
I need a home that is mine. A place to work on, cultivate and make a home.
This is my dad’s home and my mom is still here. I love that she is still here.
I miss my mother.
~Lori
“Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
