A lump in my throat

I have had a lump in my throat for about a week. I feel like I just want to eat ice cream and stay in bed all day. Deep, painful, isolating grief has come knocking at my door. Someone had e-mailed me right after my Mom had died and sent me a link to an ALS walk and said she would support us if we did it. For some reason this week its been on my mind so I decided to make a team and see if I could raise the funds they ask each team to raise. You can read more about the team I created here - Sweet Caroline.

I have needed a good cry for about a week and yet every time the tears come they get bottled up and pushed down. I'm not ready to face it, I don't want to feel the pain right now. I understand why they say that sometimes denial is an important part of grief - it protects us from the pain before we are ready to feel it.

Then tonight I saw a friend of mine donate, donate generously, and its like that lump in my throat started to break up just a little and in writing a little note to her the tears came and my heart bled from the pain as each tear fell. I'm crying as I write this and while I hate it, I know I need it. I just need to call her, to talk to her just for a few minutes. I miss not having someone who understands me so fully and loves me all the same. Maybe I just needed to feel like I was doing something - anything!

I see spring all around and love to see the blossoms and new leaves on all of our trees reemerging. Today I realized that our apple tree is probably not coming back from the winter. I'm not sure why - this is its second winter and all of our other trees are thriving. But our apple isn't waking up and its branches are brittle and dry. Seems so silly but its been brutal on me. I haven't even trusted myself to tell John or the boys yet because I don't trust that I could get the words out without sobbing. That was the tree my Mom and I had conspired together and dreamed of all the applesauce our hearts desired.
Now she is gone and so is my apple tree....

This month also brings my Moms birthday. The day we celebrated her being born - her life. Birthdays seem so much more significant to me now because I didn't use to appreciate life as much as I do now. How I would have partied last year had I known what this year would hold.

I'm sure this didn't made a lick of sense and that's okay because grief doesn't make sense. What is important is that the tears finally came. While it hurts to face the pain the lump in my throat feels just a little bit looser and maybe, just maybe, I will find the desire to reemerge and it will inspire my apple tree to come back too.