December 13. Bittersweet.

When something bad happens, people say the wrong things so often. They say weird, hurtful things when they're trying to be nice. They say things that don't hurt until later, and then when they do begin to hurt, you can't get the words out of your mind. It's like a horror movie; everywhere you turn, those awful words are scrawled on every wall.

But there's something worse than the things people say. It's much worse, I think, when people say nothing. -Shauna Niequist- {Bittersweet excerpt}

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On Thursday, December 13th, 2007 at 1:05 a.m. my mother, my mumsy, passed away. She left the pain and the illness she'd been living with and fighting seven months and went home to be with our Father in heaven.

Three years, today.

I have found over time that when people find out my mom has passed away, a lot of times they don't know what to say. Sometimes it gets real awkward. Sometimes they quickly say they're sorry and then change the subject to something lighter and happier and sometimes, people say nothing.

For a long time I would avoid the subject because I was so tired of these adverse reactions. Just about lying when I'd see people that didn't know the news. Avoiding any conversations that centered around our mothers.

What's funny though is sometimes I really want to talk about it.

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When you're mourning, when something terrible has happened, it's on your mind and right at the top of your heart all the time. It's genuinely shocking to you that the sun is still shining and that people are still chattering away on Good Morning America. Your world has changed, utterly, and it feels so incomprehensible that the bus still comes and the people in the cars next to you on the highway just drive along as if nothing's happened. When you're in that place, it's a gift to be asked how you're doing, and most of the time the answer comes tumbling out, like water over a broken dam, because someone finally asked, finally offered to carry what feels like an unbearable load with you.-Shauna Niequist {Bittersweet excerpt}

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Sometimes things feel so fresh and I want to tell you what it felt like when I heard the news that my mom was sick. How I bought an "I heart mom" shirt in San Francisco just a couple days later. I want to tell you that I actually told an old friend that I wished it was someone else who had cancer and not my mom. As if I could make a trade with God. "I'll give you this one, God, but not her."

I want to tell you what it was like when I took my mom to chemo. How it felt to spend all day taking care of H and my family and then spending some evenings at my mom's, scanning photos for her and having dinner and hearing her say "Just like old times."

I want to tell you about the week my mom went into the hospital and how it felt to sit in urgent care with Maddy, who was sick and then getting the call that it was time. How it felt to drop off Henry with Ty and Maddy's mom and just go.

I want to tell you about the sleepless nights, wondering if a call would come and that the night the call did come, I had to run through the house to the kitchen to get the phone in time. I want to tell you that as long as I live I will not forget the words my dad spoke and his voice that night.

I want to tell you what it was like pulling a sleeping baby from his crib and riding in the car with Jeff in silence in the middle of the night. And I want to tell you what it was like walking out with my dad.
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I don't believe God's up in heaven making things go terribly wrong in our lives so that we learn better manners and better coping skills. But I do believe in something like composting for the soul: that if you can find life out of death, if you can use the smashed up garbage to bring about something new and good, however tiny, that's one of the most beautiful things there is.

I learned to say something. And I offer my apologies for all the times I didn't say something. I'm really sorry about that. For a whole bunch of not very good reasos, I didn't know better then. But I know better now.

So when there's bad news or scary news of when something falls apart, say something. ... And if you don't know what to say, try this: "I heard what happened, and I don't know what to say." - Shauna Niequist {Bittersweet excerpt}

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I try not to dwell on the fact that my mom passed away. When friends sit and talk about plans with their families at holidays, I listen quietly. At Mother's Day, I am silent. Everywhere I go I am asked what I am doing, or will I be seeing my mom, or what am I buying her. And it's awkward and strange and I'm never quite sure how to handle it without making it strange.

I have this friend, who's incredibly busy with her three small children. But what I love about her is there is no barrier and she'll just say it. She'll just ask. She'll say the awkward thing or ask the question while others stay prim and proper and quiet, she'll say something like, "It must have been so hard. I think about it all the time and I'm sorry." And just like that, I'm validated and I know she cares.

Another friend of mine, who has suffered her own unbearable loss a few years ago, remembers things and will just send me an email or a note and touch base with me and connect and tell me, "I was thinking of you, I know it's your mom's birthday."

Shauna's book, Bittersweet, touched me and hit a nerve in me in many ways, the chapter I've shared above is just one of many that really resonated with me.

Her essay-like chapters flow and bring you from happy laughter to tears the next. She grieves a different loss than mine and writes about it and around it and in it that you can feel the loss.

After reading Shauna's first book Cold Tangerines, I was sharing it and quoting it and telling people, they must read it. And now, after reading Bittersweet, it's the same thing. Anyone who has ever had a loss or has wavered or wondered or waffled with something must read it. Each chapter flows as though you are sitting having coffee with her and by the end, when I turned the last pages of the last chapter, it felt as though we were friends.

There would seem to be nothing bittersweet about a loss like a parent or a miscarriage or a baby but that's where I've learned I'm wrong.
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Bittersweet is the practice of believing that we really do need both the bitter and the sweet, and that a life of nothing but sweetness rots both your teeth and your soul. Bitter is what makes us strong, what forces us to push through, what helps us earn the lines on our faces and the calluses on our hands. Sweet is nice enough, but bittersweet is beautiful, nuanced, full of depth and complexity. -Shauna Niequist {Bittersweet excerpt}
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I miss my mom. A lot. There are so many things that have changed and ebbed and flowed and I wish so much sometimes that I could have a day, an hour even, just a little more. But I also have strangely, over the last three years, grown and while I still miss her and have a mom-shaped hole in my heart that only she could fill, I have felt at peace.

Three years feels like an eternity ago. And then again, just like I said on Evelyn's birthday about her life, it feels like yesterday.

Three years ago, today. I lost my mom. My children lost their grandma Nan. My dad lost his wife. I would be lying if I said today's not a sad day, because it is. It is bitter.

But the sweetness, my friends, comes from the memories and the smiles and the photos and the stories that are passed along.
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Shauna Niequist is giving away a signed copy of Bittersweet to one of my readers. If you are interested {and I hope you are!} please leave a comment here. A winner will be chosen Thursday, December 16.