Last Christmas.....

I was reading through my blog today and I realised that I never really wrote about what happened last Christmas day, maybe I didn't feel strong enough at the time. I think that maybe now I am.
Christmas morning my younger brother called me to say that he was going home (from the hospice) because mum looked so ill he was scared she was going to die. I thought that he was exaggerating but I asked him to wait until I got there. I'd promised to take the girls with me to see their nan on Christmas day so we all went together. I went into her room first while Graham waited with the girls. My brother had left and I could see why. Mum was lying there barely breathing. Her eyes were open but there was nothing behind them, she didn't even know I was there. I went out to Graham and the girls and told them nanny was sleeping and they could go in and give her a kiss then daddy would take them in the gardens.
After Graham took them out I sat there holding her hand and told her how much I loved her. I wanted to stay until the end, I could tell it was coming, but Graham had no way of taking the girls home and I had a turkey in the oven. So I tore myself away vowing to go back as soon as I could.
At home, I don't know how but I managed to finish dinner, and even eat a little, but I was rushing to get back to mum. I felt bad for deserting my family but I knew it was the last chance I had to be with her. I was just putting on my coat to leave when the phone rang and I found out I was too late. I still went and she looked just as she had earlier, only this time she wasn't breathing. Her sister had been with her when she took her last breathe, so she wasn't alone. My older brother and his wife where there too. My younger brother hadn't been able to face going back.
So that was my Christmas last year.
This year I will feel sad but I'm also determined to make it special for my children.
After mum died last year lots of people told me that you never get over losing your mum. At the time I just wanted the pain to stop but now I realise that what I was told was true. The pain never stops but you find ways of dealing with it, life continues and the pain continues, but now I can embrace it because it reminds me of what I've lost, and what I've lost is a part of me.