Forty + Ten

It is a funny thing this December 2023. As I enter my last year of my 30s and reflect on all that means, I also hit another milestone - 10 years since losing Momma. 

These two markers of time seem so greatly intertwined. The night of my 39th birthday, I sat down and made a long list of 40 things I wanted to accomplish before I turn 40. Some were more silly (17. Always remember to turn the car off when I come inside) while others more tangible (24. Take the kids to two new cities). Some were deeply personal and relationship driven; others were efforts to grow my faith. 

But in all of them - there she was. Influencing what I wanted to be as a mother. Causing me to pause and reflect on my words, my actions, and how I was making the babies feel. Remembering those late night conversations in the last years of her life where she shared so openly about her own regrets and the things she would have done different. 

All of her yesterdays played through my memories as I thought about my own wishes for all of my tomorrows. Repeatedly, I was reminded that those days are not promised. That friendships matter. What a home feels like. How to be welcoming and kind to all. That a true love of God and relationship with Jesus can be transformative. 

And I thought of all she would have told me she wanted for me. The hopes and dreams she would have for me still - her youngest baby, even if I am very quickly approaching 40. 

She is gone and the truth of that doesn't shock me anymore. My heart doesn't race and I don't struggle to catch my breath when I say the words out loud. No, those deep aches of the early years have been steadily excised through countless tears.

It does seem unreal though that she should have been gone now ten years. A quarter of my life. She has missed an entire decade of my life. 

On the night of my 30th birthday - 9 days shy of the 1st anniversary of her death - I called her best friend and sobbed. "How can she not know me in my 30s? How can I do this without her?"

Now, as the penultimate year of my 30s draws to a close, I think the same things. I think of all the things she has missed. All the things I have missed her for - how every celebration has seemed lacking without her laugh and support. How every heartache has seemed greater without her hand rubbing my back and her West Virginia strength radiating into me. And oh how she would have loved these babies. Fiercely. Unwaveringly. Selflessly. 

The girls and I visited her grave in Arlington during our Spring Break trip in April. I hadn't been since a friend's wedding 7 years earlier. And as the girls walked further along with our hostess, I sat down and touched the stone. I cried like I hadn't cried in years. I talked to her as if she was right there with me. I apologized for things I should have while she was here and forgave her for things long overdue. I sobbed and walked through all the hardships that were happening this year and in the end, as I rubbed the stone in some effort to be close to her, I whispered "We are going to be okay, Momma. I promise. You loved us so well. And we are going to be okay."

So it goes - I wrap up my 30s and face a new decade of life and a new decade without her, carrying always her love and her strength with me. When that decade is over, I hope I can say that I have accomplished so much - not just for me but also for her, fulfilling some of her dreams she never got to see come to fruition and fully embracing the most beautiful inheritance she could have left me - that of her love.