Day 38

Today's emotion was sadness.

My mother died suddenly three  years ago this past April. As her only living relative I went to bury her and clean out her apartment.  There was a box of leftover yarn in her garage/basement. Decided that after I finished the afghan for Eldest I was going to use my mother's yarn for another afghan. Figured it would be good therapy as I was so busy Dealing With Stuff at the time of her death.

Today I went to Wal-Hell for background yarn and that was when the sadness hit. Not because she was dead and I missed her (I don't) but because the last years of her life were so needlessly awful. One of the other things in that same garage/basement was a recycling bin with six empty 1.75 liter bottles of Gran Legacy vodka, some with lines and days of the week drawn in wobbly Sharpie marker. Put a third of a bottle away one Saturday and another third the following Sunday. Her journal had lots of entries about "woke up around 4 again; had my usual three shots to get back to sleep." Which made the handwritten "buy vodka" hang tag for the coat closet and the one on the kitchen counter and the one taped to the dashboard of her car make more sense but be no less sad.

You see why I call it the "Beauty From Not" afghan.

If I had known it was anything like that I could have - would have - offered help and support and "you aren't alone" but she was so busy pushing me away with both hands that I didn't get a chance to tell her anything.

I was sad not just for losing my mother but because it was so pointless. All of that (plus more) got moved to center-stage this morning, hence the sadness.

But it shall pass as it always does.