Saying Goodbye ♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸❤¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪

~I don't know anyone who finds saying goodbye easy. It's is one of life's many lessons that we all hope never to have to learn. The biggest death I ever had to endure until my Mother's was my Grandfather's death. He was my Mom's father. As a kid he lived near us. He was so much fun I remember. He would put plastic rain caps on his head, lipstick on his lips and pretend to be an old lady. Then he would pretend to pull peanut butter cups out of my ears. He was a ball of energy. But just as he became a great, consistent part of my life he was gone. He and my Grandmother soon moved to Florida. The berkshire weather chased them away. When he was diagnosed with cancer his illness and death was summed up for me with a week long trip to Florida followed by a phone call that he had passed away. I remember my Mother's reaction that moment that the news came in and for the years to come. She would speak of seeing him in her dreams and she would talk about him often. I missed him but for her the loss was great.

At 42 my Mom suffered her first heart attack. I remember me and my friend were watching a horror movie in the living room when the phone rang and suddenly we were watching my father rushing back and forth through the house looking for his keys and telling us we had to go to the hospital. It was Christmastime and Mom had been at her yearly Holiday party for work when she suffered the heart attack. A co-worker got her to the hospital. We spent the next few weeks in that hospital room, Christmas too, feeling so grateful at the close call and never realizing that this was just one medical problem in a half a dozen to come.

My Mother died at 58. Yes, very young. You wouldn't know looking at my Mother that she had gone through 4 surgeries in the past 2 years. My Mother was full of life and love. She embodied what I conceive to be true beauty and love.She was an Angel on earth. Until the day she died I believed God had lent us a true Angel to see our family through what would be a very difficult amount of problems. I would call her Switzerland because if my sister and I were arguing or if there was anyone who needed a "go between" or a safety zone it was Mom. She was also very very careful to be even with her kids both in loving us and in what she physically gave us.(You can imagine what that meant at Easter time when a bag of Jelly beans needed to be divided...Yes she COUNTED THEM!!) She was so even that it almost makes it bad now for me atleast because when someone isn't like that I have to retrain myself to not see it as a lack of love.

My Mother was a stay at home mom until I was about 9 then she went off to work where she would be until the day she died about a year ago. She loved her job, her co-workers and the family that owned and ran the business just as they all loved her back. I have to admit that I think I do hold a bit of resentment for her working career because I, like many, never could get my fill of my Mother and once she took on a supervisor's postition her hours were very long. It wasn't that the owners expected her to work until 2 or 3 am it was my Mom's need to get the job done right. I remember when she would finally get home that Dad wouldn't be speaking to her because of being worried about her long hours and hurt that she seemed to like to be at work rather than be home. It is for another blog but I will say here that my father isn't good at saying what bothers him.He has always been a man who speaks with his actions.Mom would come home late and he would be grumpy with us 3 kids then lock himself in his bedroom for 4 days coming out only for food and bathroom and to work. A great amount of what I remember about my father in my time at home is him working 12 hour shifts then going to bed. If we needed something I would have to summon up the courage at his door to knock and ask him. Its not that I worried that he would hit me or anything like that..Its just that he was mad at the world it seemed and would let us know. "Whatever" was his favorite answer to many of my questions.

So, Mom had her first heart attack at 42, congestive heart failure in 1995 (missed my sister's graduation because she was so sick she couldn't get out of bed yet refused to go to the doctor until we forced her), continued water on the heart until she died and then a few years ago it was like her body just gave in. She hated going to the doctor but she had no choice as she her blood levels were dangerously off. I accompanied her to the heart doctor who after testing her announced that she needed 3-4 surgeries. Her coratid arteries were blocked (arteries that are in either side of the neck that would have to be cleared individually so they counted as two surgeries), she had a tear in her aorta (if it let go she could die instantaneously) and she also had a low functioning kidney with the other having no function. Could I give her a kidney I asked? No...It wouldn't be worth and now the reason why is escaping me. She also needed a defibilator for her heart.

Long story short Mom had all the surgeries minus the kidney since there was nothing they could do. She couldn't work for quite awhile. Dad who had suffered a stroke a year before was showing signs of having had another and was refusing to go with her to Baystate hospital and no one was able to work. My husband, kids and I moved into my childhood home with my Mother while my father opted to move out(story for another blog, believe me) and my mother with a sick heart trying to recover was finding it broken too thanks to her 35-year old marriage ending.

Mom recovered slowly with a lot of doctors appointments and a careful diet. She returned to work and with her income and ours the house was getting paid for, I was working, the kids were attending the same school as before because we had put them in Lanesboro school early on before we even knew we would move here. Because of President Clinton's "School choice" legislation any child could go to any school as long as the school had room for them. Kevin and I had both grown up in small towns so we preferred our kids to go to a small town school.So things were going well. One day Dad just came home. Mom being the forgiving, loving and wonderful person she is she never said a word to him really, just welcomed him home. I knew how she felt as did her close friends but there was always that "Dad is sick and can't help it" element to the whole thing.

Everything was finally going well for My parents. Dad was receiving disability because of his strokes and Mom was working back at her job. The kids were getting bigger and the house smaller. After Dad came home he brought with him his impatience for people, kids and anyone. He was miserable and although we were cleaning the house, making dinner, doing the yard work and paying more than enough to live there, he was not liking the living situation. So, we decided it was time to move on and Kevin,the kids and I moved into a house one street over. We continued to help out as much as possible.

It was about a year later that my Mother had a heart attack. She had just come home from work, parked her SUV, took the empty garbage cans up to the house then, I guess, sat in the passenger seat of her car....and died. My husband who volunteers on the Lanesboro fire department heard the call go out and called me. I, with the kids (had no choice) drove to Mom's house where there she sat as beautiful as ever, like she was just sleeping, in her car with her pocketbook in her lap. Dad was standing there shaking talking to the police officer and the fire department was pulling in.I remember saying over and over "she has a defibilator, she has a defibilator...why is she not breathing SHE HAS A DEFIBILATOR!!". It didn't matter, she was pronounced dead a half hour later at the hospital. The EMTs did all the life saving techniques they could do but she left us that night, February 11, 2009.

Its been over a year since we went into that room and kissed my mother, my best friend's beautiful face goodbye, a year since I stood before close to a thousand friends, relatives and co-workers and read a Eulogy for my Mother that I wrote to say goodbye;Its been over a year since I have really felt hope~ Hope for there being real happiness and a God and someone in the world who truly loves and understands me as only a mother and best friend can...How do I say goodbye to someone, the only one who really ever tried to understand and fight for me. My kids, my friends, my Husband...I love, adore and couldn't imagine my life without them...My kids are a reason in themself to fight and love. Yet the world is colder and less friendly since mom died. She could make the grumpiest, meanest person smile...Mom could make any room light up. It's a strange place without her...

I still talk to Mom,right out loud and open. I speak to her and tell her everything I would've if she really were here physically. I want to believe she is there in spirit, I want to believe in God. Before Mom died she had been trying to talk me into going to church with her. Funny because she hadn't gone since I was confirmed at 17...Maybe she knew something we didn't.

I have to fight to live at least in memory of her. I have to find a reason to be here and something in all of this fear to hang onto. I push my friends away often because I am afraid to love and lose again. Still, here I am, blogging and opening up to people I know and people I don't...trying to set my fears and anger free s well as let the love in. Saying goodbye is the hardest words I will ever speak, the most difficult thing in the entire world to do so I won't say goodbye...I will say "Till I see you again..."

~Stacy J Roosa