Creeping

It's almost May. I hate May. Or at least, those first couple of weeks. Actually, this feeling, this rock in the pit of my stomach, the lump in my throat - they make themselves known in the last week of April. During April, there is an agitation, an ominous presence that follows me around, making it's presence felt before I cognitively realise why. I don't know why it takes me so long to cotton on. This is, after all my ninth year.

It starts out, mid April as just a mildly depressed feeling. A niggling in the back of my mind. Snappish. My heart is tender, it bruises particularly easily.

Then the mothers' day posts start on Facebook, the pins on Pinterest. And I remember.  I was at my mother's funeral on the Mothers' Day, the year I became a mother.

Then, the final week of the month, the memories start. Do I call them memories, or are they flashbacks? It's hard to know. I know I'm not there. But it's real. The smells are real to me, the sounds are real to me, the cold is real to me. The looks on everyone' sfaces are vivid. I remember everything that was said, every conversation we had. Which ones we had with her, which ones we had outside, in whispers, with the Blue Care nurse.

And now today, it's the anniversary of when it all started to fall apart. The day that she slipped into what appeared to be a coma. The day her kidney's stopped working. The day they told us there were only hours left. 

This day.  Please read it. I can't bear to ever type it again. I detailed that horrible 5 days. And a little of the days that followed. There are details I can't bear to write again. Guilt I relive every day. Bitterness and resentment I feel. Adrenaline that right at this second, seems to be kicking in. Why is that? 

Funnily enough, on the anniversary of her death, the 5th, I'll be fine. Mostly. She passed away at about 1.30 in the morning so she was at peace, finally. But the next few nights and days. They're really going to suck. I can't pretend that they won't. They always do. I wonder if they always will?