Hey blog friends. I know a lot of my posts recently have been really depressing. That’s just life lately for me, but in this post I’ll try to be a little more light-hearted.
New readers click here and read your way back.
I’ve been trying to get through my days. I’m absolutely heart-broken.
I sat on the deck steps with my boss’s dog, (I’m dog-sitting while they’re in Greece) and my neighbor asked how mom was. I musterd up a “she’s resting,” and tried to smile while tears just covered my face. I started sobbing and couldn’t stop… he gave me a helpless look and continued to water his plants.
Mom and I have been talking about the day I would get engaged since I was five. The type of ring the boy I didn’t know yet would give me, and the person God had planned. She’d let me try on her ring whenever I wanted and I’d flip through the wedding book she had with my father. The Hawaii wedding of course. (It was always hidden in the back of her closest since she got remarried).
It was a romantic and intimite destination wedding in Maui. The pictures, and the way she talked about it made it sound so perfect. She had an ice sculpture shaped like a swan and a champagne tower, they released two white doves at sunset and in every picture the background was covered in tropical jasmin blossoms and orchids. Her beaded wedding gown and her long curly hair tied up, her favorite red nail polish and silk wedding heals she barely wore; she was so beautiful and always barefoot. I always thought she looked like a princess when she got married.
My boyfriend asked mom while she was in the hospital if he could marry me.
We don’t know how much longer mom has. He wanted to make sure he got her blessing before it was too late. Out of respect and honor of who mom is, was, and what she wanted. He told her before he called dad. She always wanted that and he promised her from day one he would do it that way.
We’ve been dating four years now. It’s not a huge surprise that we want to get married. It shouldn’t be a shocker that I’d want my mom to see the ring before she passes. It was the thing we always talked and dreamed about together… I’d come home and show her my sparkly finger and we’d both scream and freak out. She’d start planning and writing out what southern deserts she wanted to serve…
He has the ring and she doesn’t want to see it. She doesn’t want anything to do with it. She was furious that he’d be asking her right now. She hated the idea, she almost caused another seizure becasue she was so angry. I’ve never seen her that angry.
She told me to tell him no.
When he decides to get down on one knee, she wants me to say no.
If he waited five months, or however long, I’d just cry and wish I could go home and show her. But she wouldn’t be home and I couldn’t go back in time.
It matters so much to me that she sees the ring. I thought maybe she’d see me with the ring and remember what we used to talk about, that she would be flooded with lost memories. I wanted something happy for a change, I wanted to give the grandparents a reason to smile and more than anything I wanted mom to be happy. But she wasn’t.
It was the only thing I wanted. The only thing I didn’t let go of.
I wasn’t rushing a wedding. It’s not that I’m just so desperate to be married. I just wanted her to see it, that’s all.
Romans 12:18 – If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.
I came to grips, after many crying breakdowns. Many.
Getting engaged and trying to force mom to be happy about it is selfish. She isn’t mom anymore and pretending that she could be for this one last thing just makes it more painful. It’s already too late and It’s another bad memory.
I know she isn’t in her right mind, I know it’s the cancer talking. She continues to believe she’s fine and getting engaged right now reminds her that she won’t be here to see the wedding. A house she can’t help me decorate and grandkids she can’t run around in the backyard with.
So, the engagment isn’t “off,” just postponed.
For Mom’s peace. For the God who has been everything to me, that He might look down and be proud, just like Mom will someday very soon.
I guess this was despressing.
Thanks for reading. -E
Elaine Kate 