Visiting the Folks

So, did you visit your folks over Thanksgiving? I did. This was our first trip back to Missouri and the cemetery were my folks are buried since my mother passed. It's so surreal having lost both my parents and I'm not even 40 yet. I was really leery about this visit and it definitely wasn't easy. At one point, as I was crying, my brother leans over to me and says, "she's not here, you know that right?"

Yes, I know the essence of her is not there in that grave...but that grave...














...that headstone...are a symbol of the life that was her and it's hard to look down at it, to read the etchings and not struggle with missing her.

It's like I could physically feel that I could reach out and pull her back. I can't see her but something feels like if I just reached out, I could touch her but at the same time if I try to reach there is emptiness. I can't reach hard enough or far enough.

I know that in time, it will get easier, the pain will ease just as it did with my dad. That's not to say I don't still miss him too but it's been 21 years. He has been gone longer than I had him with me. I can't even imagine reaching a point when my mother will have been gone just as long.

We brought them flowers. "Them"...they are together now. For the rest of my life "visiting the folks" will mean this...driving 200+ miles to bring them flowers, to tell them how much I miss them and then climb back into a vehicle and drive away, shedding tears, not knowing when I'll be back. Seems almost normal doesn't it? That could describe any one person's visits with their parents. 'Cept it's not and it never will be again.