it's been a while since i've written. i've been trying to figure out why. at times i just feel numb. other times i am seriously concerned about what this blog says. not literally, but what it says about loss and healing. i talk much more about loss than i do about healing. and the sad reality is that i am healing. it is sad because it it is hard to reconcile being well with being without her. and when i put things in those terms, i just get sick of myself because i sound like a broken record. i miss her so much.

and i am okay. christmas was surprisingly much easier than thanksgiving. i think the big difference was that i made a concerted effort to keep christmas to the core. i turned down invitations that i would have otherwise loved to accept and only spent christmas eve and christmas day with my immediate family. we had a really good time. we had mummy's favorite christmas dinner. flank steak on the grill with grilled veggies. (she was not a fan of cooking turkey or ham.) her children and grandchildren — me, magee, buzzy, maura, liam, seamus and missy — were all seated around her big table in her sunroom. we were drinking out of her fabulous water goblets and eating off of her hadley pottery and lifting glasses of mumm's in her honor. and it was never lost on me that i was sitting on the very spot where she died, enjoying her people. if she actually can see us in some way, shape or form, i know she is joyful.

it was lovely.

i set my alarm for 4:50 am and went to sleep so i could wake up and be clear-headed by 5:00am.

it beeped, and i woke up, and on the anniversary of the moment that she died, i was laying in her bed, remembering her, remembering that moment, and praying for her and for all of us.

i went back to sleep for a few hours and then got up and got dressed for mass. maura had asked that they say a mass for mummy on her birthday in august, but someone had already claimed that mass. so, she claimed the 9:30 mass on december 26th. the anniversary of mummy's death ... and missy's first birthday.

we all got up and got dressed and went to church. it was shaping up to be a pretty emotional day.

then, the mass started. and the priest made a point of saying that the mass that morning was being offered in memory of "patricia bennett."

well. we all looked a little shocked. and, after about two minutes, maura stormed out of the church. that was at about the same time that i was trying to stifle my laughter.

maura was lucky the rectory was closed because she probably would have said a few things she may have regretted. she cooled off pretty quickly and was back in a few minutes. i was thinking about how funny my mom would have thought it was to see all of her kids dressed up and out of the house so early after a holiday for a mass in honor of a total stranger. and missy was in rare form. she was particularly squeally and giggly. she irritated some of the more pious people in the crowd ... and that was another thing that mummy would have found amusing.

it made me think about mummy being in my "muscle memory" as i said a few weeks ago. i go to mass occasionally ... but not nearly as often as i used to. but when i go, it is amazing that, without thinking, i can go through all of the prayers and songs as if i said them yesterday. it's striking sometimes when my conscious mind might not be able to say the "apostles creed" but then my unconscious mind takes over and the words just come out of my mouth. it's in me, the catholic thing. woven into me. i went to mass when i was in milan for work and i could whisper it all, in english, as if it were a harmony to the same words being said around me in italian.

that brings me so much comfort.

because if an hour a week for 20 years can embed those words into my soul, imagine what having all of these years with mummy has done to secure her place inside me. and sometimes, when i can't consciously conjure up a memory of her face, my unconscious mind can still feel the memory of her spirit wrapped around me like one of the blankets she'd tuck around me on a chilly evening.

and, remarkably, i can easily conjure up the memories of curling up behind her all of those times in that hospital bed in the sunroom.

i haven't even looked at the photos from christmas yet. that is not like me. i'll try to do that soon and add some pictures of our lovely holiday. and missy's first cake. but for now, i must pack some boxes.