November 3rd

November 3rd....just another day on the calendar, but not for me. Today marks the 5th anniversary(if you can call it that) of my mother's death. I normally take this day off from work, feel bad about my life, myself, and where my life has gone in the last five years. I usually start feeling melancholy on Halloween. I always try to cheer myself up at Halloween by wearing a costume to work and having lots of treats. By November 3rd, I usually just feel like crap, and usually the rest of fall until Christmas time.

I really think I'm making progress. Today, I did not cry. I did not want to just curl up and shut out the world. I did not think of all the bad stuff. I did not pity myself. Today was like any other day off. I worked on my homework, picked on my niece and nephews, and was just me today. My day seemed to fly by and seemed busy, so it wasn't until I was driving home from Onida that I did some deep thinking. I realized that even though it has been a rough five years for me, life is starting to look up. I don't feel sad when I think of my mom, I think of what a wonderful person she was, not about her untimely and tragic death. The only morose I feel is that I never told her how important she was to me. I may not have known it either had she not died. I now think of how I should live my life and what I should do to experience it fully so that when we meet again some day, we will have so much to discuss. I don't feel as if I have lost my mother spiritually-I feel her presence in me every day. I know she is in a better place. I know she's in Heaven because I know how she felt, how she loved, how she treated others. My mother is truly an angel-first on earth, now in Heaven.

I'm not saying I'm forgetting my mom-I'm at peace with how life has changed. Even though I may never understand all the reasons why, I have faith in my parents and God, and that's enough for me.