So alone...

I don't think I've ever had a day in my life where I have felt so alone.

Mom had a hysterectomy today and I was completely alone.

I watched her wheeled off on her stretcher at 9:42 am and didn't see her again until after 3:30. It was the longest 6 hours of my life. I wandered the halls of the hospital alone; I came home to Mom's empty house for lunch alone; I sat in the parking lot of the hospital alone; I sat in the lounge of the hospital alone...several times; I sat for hours. Alone.

Today, I felt the emptiness that Joanne left wholeheartedly. Today, for the first time, I felt like an only child. Today, I felt completely and entirely alone.

I needed someone to talk to today. I needed someone to sit and wait and worry with me. I needed someone to hug me. I had no one. If Joanne were alive, she would have been there with me. There was another lady there having surgery and she had her two daughters in the waiting room with her until she was wheeled away for surgery. While their Mom was operated on, they chatted to one another quietly, while I played Brickbreaker on my Blackberry. Other families sat together, some quietly reading magazines, not really socializing with one another, but comforted, I am sure, by the other person's presence, while I watched the clock and prayed...alone.

What I would have done to have Joanne there with me today. You have no idea.

No.

Idea.