Mom

Weekend? What weekend. That went by fast. I logged onto my blog and saw the last time I had written was days ago. I was going through withdrawal!

Yesterday I said good-bye to my mom as she left for a two-week trip to Israel. I confess it did not go well for me. We are very close, and I don't like sending her across the world on airplanes (you should all know by now how I feel about those things) and to places where bombs explode. She's not supposed to be near Gaza, but still! Since my dad passed away, I cling a little tighter to her.

I don't blog about my mom much because, well... she reads the blog. But since she is out of the country for two weeks, I can take this moment to dish on her a bit. She's a lifeline to me. The person I call when things go wrong or need to chat or need to vent. She raised three children: boy, girl, boy. As I have a boy, girl, boy under my care, she makes a darn good parenting resource for me.

When my dad died a few years ago from a brain tumor, there was the trauma of the illness and then the death. It was just too much for her. She has not been the same since. I often tell my close friends, "When my dad died, I lost my mom, too." She was so altered by the grief (and she has every right to be--it was hell) she is a shell of what she used to be. I still glimpse the "old" mom I remember from before, but for the most part she functions on auto-pilot and does her best to get through each day. That is why we are moving in with her. I want her to have a life again.

I hope she has a great trip. I hope she comes back full of life and eager to do more. But I'm also glad that we're one step closer to being with her full-time.