The new me…?

As I sit in my Mossy Oak camouflage glider chair, I reflect on the anticipation date of August 20, 2023. That date marks SIX years that I have been in the “bereaved parents club!” Six years!!! Who am I now? And, am I different than I was six years ago? I am a work in progress and forever changing, one surviving moment at a time.

First, I am the mother of two children! My children are my literal being, from the moment they came into this world! I remember a life before kids. It was a good life. I enjoyed my time before they were born. Not going to lie, but, I hope I am still the “me” I was then. Having children changed me… forever though! And, that is a good thing!!

I became another “me“ after children. I was a great mom to my babies! I asked my daughter once what her favorite memory of her childhood was. She said it was when I was a troop leader for her Girl Scout troop. That made me smile! I asked Cody when he was a young adult. He said he remembered the joy he got when I would take them to the wooden park. It was a tricentennial park at one of our town’s oldest parks. Again, that made me smile. Truth be told, those moments brought me so much more joy than it brought them!!

I became another “me” after Cody died. I became another level of a survivor. I survived my 20’s and the “sewing my oats” stage. I then survived the child-bearing years and sleepless nights, which became a different kind of sleepless nights issue when the kids became teenagers and young adults. Now I have to survive another layer of “sleepless nights.” It’s all the same, but still different.

Unless you have deep grief, it is hard to understand. You don’t move on from grief. You move through it. It travels with you. Forever. I am still the “me” I was before marriage, before children, and after loss. I’m just a different version of “me.” I don’t want to be the “new me.” I want to be the old ‘me’ who is seasoned. The ‘me’ that has survivor scars. The ‘me’ that the devil is afraid of and God is proud of! I want to be the ‘me’ who helps others become the ‘me’ they never thought they could be. I want to be the ‘me’ combined with all the other ‘me’s’ I never thought I could, or the ‘me’ from my darkest moments that survived whatever was thrown!!

So, the new ‘me’ has been hurled between mountains (metaphorically and literally), reached depths of my soul I never thought could exist, and came out on top with my heart still beating! Not sure that heart of mine can take much more, but it has endured the best and worst life has to offer and, yet, still keeps going. That is a story I can only hope gets me into Heaven.

As I near the six year mark of yet another ‘new me,’ I remember all the “me’s” that got me here and the paths I traveled to earn those versions of me. To the early 20’s me that closed the bars; to the mid- twenties me that buried my dad a year after he walked me down the aisle and before he got to meet my children; to the late 20-early 30’s me that raised two wonderful children; the 30-40’s me that survived the teenage years of those kids; late 40’s me that became a grandma for the first time; to the 50’s me that went back to school to earn her Masters degree; the mid-to-late 50’s me that lost a child and still breathes; and to the future me that hopes to make a positive difference to those in my life… I am still “me” in all those versions combined!

I am “me” because of all those experiences and persons in my life, and, in my heart. Life is a journey that changes course when we least expect it. Each journey creates a new version added to the old version. I hope those that are meeting the new me can see some of the old me still in here somewhere. For all those that know any of the versions, please look up to the skies and let Cody know through your words that his mama misses him. Though this month is a “sad me,” he still helped me to be a better version of ‘me’ than I was before I was his mama. And as my normal ‘me,’ I cry because he is gone, but I smile because he was here!

#gonesixyears #neverforgotten #forvere24 #thedashinthemiddle