30 Day Writing Challenge 2 - 4/23/16: Hollow

Bumble, bumble, bumblebee

Bore another hole in the hollow tree....

That was a little rhyme my maternal grandmother would say to me, often while I was sitting in her lap, and with her index finger circling in the air. I knew the tickling was coming, and as ticklish as I was, funny how I didn't mind my grandmother tickling me. 

But today -- especially -- I feel the hollowness instead. Today, and I don't know why, it has been an emotionally excruciating day. I slept over 9 hours last night, something I very rarely do. I have been on the verge of a migraine all day, and frankly if it's going to come, I wish it would hurry up, beat the ever-loving hell out of me and let me sleep it off. Nothing has really made much of a difference. 

And I have missed my mom more in the last three to four days than I have in the other 45 days since she spread those wings and flew. I have determined that from now through Mother's Day, I cannot set foot again in a craft store or the craft section of other stores. I just can't. I kind of want to avoid a lot of places because the "get your mom a ____" blast is on. Even one of the local churches put up a sign the first week of April with "Mom called, she wants you to join her in church on Mother's Day." And I've wanted to call them and say, "(Bleep) you, you heartless bastards, my mother didn't call. My mother knew I have been in church every Sunday, even if it wasn't with her, and your attempts to guilt people into your pews is beyond sad."

The hollow place will always be there. There's a void in my life which will never be filled. It is the mom space. Other spaces will open and close as time rolls on, but this is a huge gaping yawn of a chasm. I won't canonize my mom and I dare say that my dad and brother won't either. Just this morning we were talking about how much she's allowed herself to decline in those years, how we tried to stop it but she seemed to want to hasten her meeting with the Grim Reaper -- while we were begging her to slow down the train. I burst into tears this afternoon in the car (having come out of Michaels Crafts), and I mumbled, "Damn you, you old bat, why did you leave this way? And do you know how much I miss you?"

And I do. Despite all our differences, our clashes (and they were epic), and our inability to really connect on a deep level, there was love. I know she's reaching out to me still, and I'm trying to listen. Those echoes of love will create a gorgeous symphony in a hollow heart.