Feeling a Void

Although I think about my mom everyday, there are some things that make me miss her more than others.  Simple things usually.  My mom was a very simple person.  She did not care about fancy clothes, or posh furniture.  She was not showy or ostentatious at all.  I think that was one of things everyone loved about her.  She had everything she needed and she never longed for “stuff.”  She was happy with what she had.  She was even happy when she was not well.  She was always able to wear a smile despite how she was feeling.

I talked to my friend Tricia today and we talked about “putting on a smile.”   We laughed because just like me, she said people are always asking her how she is always smiling.  She has gone through a tough period too.  Her husband was out of work for quite some time, her mom was incredibly ill and she and her sister are trying to hold the whole family together throughout it all.  Very similar to how I feel.  We all know that we need to keep smiling because if we don’t smile and keep looking for the positive, we’d probably fall apart!

Our families have been friends since we were very young.  I think I was about five when they moved into the house behind us.  We were backyard neighbors for years and have all remained friends.  They called my mom “Aunt Ellie”, we call her mom, “Aunt Joyce.”  She and my mom were best friends.  The morning of my mom’s wake, Aunt Joyce had a massive heart attack.  It was devastating.  She went through weeks of recovery and dealt with setbacks throughout it.  She has been recovering slowly but I found out today that she was just in the hospital again with congestive heart failure.  She’s home now and has a nurse coming into check on her several times a week.  I am so relieved to hear that she is recovering but still I am sure that it is so hard on her family.

As we talked and caught up on what’s been going on in our lives, we kept bringing up the fact that if we didn’t find the positive in all of it, we would topple and plunge into a place none of us want to go.  We all miss my mom and think about her daily but we are each moving forward with our lives and that would make my mom happy.

Tagged: happiness fills a void, happiness is a journey, missing mom, moving on, old friends, putting on a smile, smile