Well I guess the title isn't quite accurate. I'm not really mad at her. I'm just mad she's not here. I think I have shared here before that I have two phases that I default to when I grieve. Sadness and anger. I really hate crying and do all that I can to avoid it. When I start to think of something that makes me tear up, I change the subject in my mind. I allow myself to be angry much more frequently. Maybe that's not a good thing but that's how I deal with it. So yes, I'm mad at my mom's absence. It really sucks. A lot. And now I have anger and tears. I guess that's good for me. Anyway, what brought me to this point today, since I've become so good at repressing it, was something rather dumb. Barbecue beef. See, I told you, dumb. Here's the whole path. I decided to look for a recipe at CooksIllustrated.com (the parent company/magazine of America's Test Kitchen). Chad has an account there because several years ago my mom gave him a subscription to Cooks Illustrated magazine for either Christmas or his birthday. He loved it. Eventually she transitioned it to the online subscription because of the greater access to recipes. She always gave the best, most appropriate gifts (for the receiver), especially to Chad. I can't explain why she was so in his head but she was. They had a lot in common and why that is making me cry right now, I don't know. Maybe I'm jealous. But anyway, she really had a knack for giving him gifts. He really got into cheese-making before he started back to school and lost the time for it. So, one year for his birthday, I believe, she got him some fresh goat's milk from a local farmer and my dad made him a cheese hanging apparatus. I don't really have much more to say on this line of discussion other than she was an excellent gift giver for the boys, too. I am so sad that they are all going to miss out on her thoughtfulness. To be clear, it's not about the material things she gave, especially because monetarily she didn't have much to give, but it's all about the amount of thought and effort she put into the gifts. It was extraordinary. For some reason she had more trouble getting me things that fit my personality and interests. I don't know why. We talked all the time on the phone and had a very close relationship. Maybe it was a case of not being able to see the forest because of all the trees (as in being so close to me that a larger more complete image of me was not visible).
Eh, I got sidetracked here, as usual. Other than the fact that she was an excellent gift giver and that the Cooks Illustrated was a gift from her, I checked the subscription information because I knew it was probably getting time to renew. Of course it was. She died in April and had renewed it in February of last year. I cannot believe she has been gone nearly a whole year. I can't deal with this. This was all supposed to fix itself and my mom should be back here to celebrate her 51st birthday on April 4th. God this is unfair. Jude will only barely remember her (about as much as remember my Grandma Janet that died when I was the same age he was when my mom died), Lennon will really only know what we tell him and what he can see of pictures of the two of them, and Emeline won't have any memories or even photos of the two of them to look back on. I really hate this. Nothing more to add now then tears.
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