{"id":7614,"date":"2015-04-29T07:32:31","date_gmt":"2015-04-29T11:32:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kikis-list.com\/?p=7614"},"modified":"2015-04-28T13:29:07","modified_gmt":"2015-04-28T17:29:07","slug":"happy-birthday-mom-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kikis-list.com\/blog\/2015\/04\/29\/happy-birthday-mom-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy Birthday Mom."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mom<\/a><\/p>\n

Today would have been my Mom’s 70th birthday. \u00a0It’s hard to beleive she’s been gone almost 10 years. \u00a0I’m often sad\u00a0to think of how much my girls are missing out on by not knowing her ridiculously loud voice, her abundant charisma and her loving spirit. \u00a0And just then, magically, one of them will tell one of the many “Grandma” stories that they have heard through the years while trying\u00a0to imitate her in their best New York accent.<\/p>\n

\u00a0My mom lost her 16 year battle with Thyroid Cancer\u00a0two weeks before the birth of my first daughter\u00a0(and her first grandchild.) \u00a0Something she so badly wanted to be there for. \u00a0My sister was also pregnant with her first child and was due two months after me. \u00a0\u00a0The emotional pain of knowing what she would be missing seemed to wear on her so much more than the physical.<\/p>\n

It took me a reaaaaaallly<\/em> long time to move on. \u00a0But the fact is that I had a new family and a job and a lot of responsibility. \u00a0I didn’t\u00a0have a choice. \u00a0I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I instinctively picked up the phone to call her when my newborn\u00a0was sick, or something great happened in my life-\u00a0 only to hear that her number had been disconnected. \u00a0 Over the past 10 years I would have given anything to ask my mom questions about family medical history, how I was as a child, or even get a simple recipe that I loved growing up. \u00a0But that was no longer an option.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Unfortunately, the real world is not an ideal place to grieve. \u00a0Our schedules don’t allow for it. \u00a0You take your bereavement leave, bury your loved ones and\u00a0pick yourself up and dust yourself off and move on as best you can. \u00a0Picking up the pieces as you go.<\/p>\n

But the pain of losing a parent doesn’t go away. \u00a0A piece of your heart is missing. \u00a0No one will ever love you like a\u00a0parent. \u00a0That person that you’ve strived your entire\u00a0life to make proud isn’t there for any of your future accomplishments. \u00a0The one\u00a0who picked you up and loved you when you were at your lowest is no longer there to tell you everything is going to be ok. \u00a0One half\u00a0of who you are and where you came from is gone forever.<\/p>\n

but….<\/p>\n

It’s now up to you to keep their memory alive. \u00a0Not just for your children, but for yourself. \u00a0And slowly that hole in your heart becomes a little smaller day by day. \u00a0It will never completely go away, but it changes, for the better. \u00a0I am so lucky to have an amazing father\u00a0and two wonderful siblings. \u00a0I am so proud of how close we have kept our growing family and how well we have kept her spirit alive. \u00a0Now, 10 Grandchildren later, we make\u00a0family time a priority. \u00a0Because that’s how we were raised. \u00a0I think\u00a0Mom would’ve been proud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today would have been my Mom’s 70th birthday. \u00a0It’s hard to beleive she’s been gone almost 10 years. \u00a0I’m often sad\u00a0to think of how much my girls are missing out on by not knowing her ridiculously loud voice, her abundant charisma and her loving spirit. \u00a0And just then, magically, one of them will tell one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,32,8,23,12,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-motherly-moment","category-family","category-kiddos","category-kids","category-life","category-mom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kikis-list.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kikis-list.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kikis-list.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kikis-list.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kikis-list.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kikis-list.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7614\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kikis-list.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kikis-list.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kikis-list.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}