5 years

Five years have passed since I lost her.

Five long, short, quick, slow, painful years.

Some days it seems like yesterday. Others like 25 years ago.

I *still*, for a split second, think of calling her and realize I can't.

Damn I miss her.

Mom put an ad in the local paper today.

She has been on my heart all day.

The support of my Facebook friends has been phenomenal. Thank you for being there...I am blessed with friends that I wish were family.

When she loved me...

The boys are watching Toy Story 2 right now. Every.single.time. this song comes on, I have to leave the room, bawling. It makes me think of Joanne and miss her so much. :o(

Happy Heavenly Birthday Joanne

Today, you would be 39. I love you and miss you so very much.

I hope your party in Heaven is a great one.

I love you.

Christmas time is so bittersweet...

My Mum and Dad made Christmas SO special when we were growing up. No matter if Dad was laid off around the Christmas season or times were tough, Joanne and I always got what we asked for from Santa.

I remember years when our family room was FULL of gifts...like can't walk because the room was so full full. Amazing.

We didn't have family to celebrate with...our entire extended family was back home in England, but Mum and Dad always took us to good friends' houses and made up for the emptiness that being alone in a country 3,000 miles from home can bring.

Joanne and I would watch all the Christmas specials on TV...Frosty, Rudolph, The Misfit Toys, A Christmas Carol, etc. etc. etc. We just loved Christmas. And that love for Christmas carried into our adulthood. Joanne LOVED to cook and entertain. She loved watching our kids open their gifts. Christmas became about out kids and no longer about us and we both loved every moment of it.

So, this is the time of year when I miss Joanne and Dad the most. They both had such a love for the whole Christmas idea and they really made it a special time. Now that they are gone, although we still love Christmas and celebrate the same way, their emptiness is so very real. The void they left is still so huge. Christmas will never, ever be the same again now that they are gone. Our celebration is quieter, more low-key. My boys don't get to see the love that Joanne and Dad had for this time of year.

So, as much as I still love Christmas, I also dread the pain that comes with it. :o(

Joanne Junior

We spent the evening at my Mum's tonight to celebrate her birthday. Mark and Patricia brought their clan down too and we had a lovely evening together.

All the kids were downstairs at one point and C, my oldest niece, was chatting to me from across the family room. My GOODNESS she was Joanne all over again for a moment. Her mannerisms, her smile, her voice, her laugh...she is ALL her mother. I got all overwhelmed and went over to hug and kiss her. I hugged her so tight that she spilled her bottle of water, but I just couldn't help it. I told her how much she was like her Mum and she smiled...Joanne's smile. I think she likes that she is like her Mum...

and I like that.

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.

Memories

Happier times...Joanne, holding her eldest, C; me, holding Joanne's middle daughter, R; Mum holding my 30th birthday cake; three year old Boy Oneder and our nephew, Anthony, in the background.

My beautiful sister...