With my baby girl coming, I've been thinking a lot about my mom. Her first grandchild is about to enter this world, and she isn't here. My mom. Isn't. Here.
It hurts. It hurts that my own mother won't be here to experience the joys of childbirth with me. She was a strong woman, giving birth to all 4 of us naturally, and I know she would be right by my side cheering me on throughout my entire pregnancy and labor. She would be helping me decorate the nursery, taking me maternity clothes shopping, and making sure I'm taking care of myself.
My mom would have loved this sweet baby girl so much.
That being said, I've been doing some thinking, and I've been doing some grieving. It's important for me to process as much as I can regarding my mom's death before baby comes so I can be fully present for her.
I've been thinking about this post for awhile.... what I would write, why I would write it, who would read it, the purpose of even blogging about it.
Talking about the night of her death is a first for me. Because of her unusual death, it's sad to tell what happened because in some ways, it leaves a negative image of who she was and she shouldn't be defined by that.
Her last few years of life were filled with so much sorrow and pain, and that's just not the whole picture.
Leading up to the night of her death, my mom had been battling a drinking problem. She had been trying to quit for 4-5 years, been to countless detox centers, in and out-patient rehabs, therapy, AA, you name it, she'd tried it. I knew it was only a matter of time before something horrible happened as she had had several dangerous incidents previously because of her drinking.
But here's the whole picture. My entire life with the exception of her last few years on Earth were filled with happy memories. I had a wonderful childhood filled with love and true joy. I feel like my parents did a wonderful job of raising me, and my mom was like a ray of sunshine to everyone she came into contact with. She was driven, loving, enthusiastic, fun, spontaneous, motivated, and radiated charisma. She touched the lives of many with her magnetic personality. Her advice was gold, and she loved to help people in any way she could. To me, she was super-mom. She was the PTA-volunteer-van driving-soccer-mom who made nutritious dinners every night and still had time to sew us clothes, take us to the zoo, decorate our home beautifully, and love us with the kind of love that only a mother can.
The drinking was a slow progression over 7-8 years, but looking back now it seems to have come out of nowhere. How could such a horrible alcohol problem control my strong-willed hero? The drinking began to get out of control when we left our old church fourteen years ago. My parents had some disagreements with the doctrine of what this church believed and decided to leave. Her identity was so wrapped up in this church/religion and what other people thought of her that when relationships with family and friends from this church became strained, she slowly began to lose her identity.
She was haunted by a pain that I can't understand, and suffered silently from guilt and shame not feeling that she was worth anything or that her life mattered.
She had such a strong personality and was capable of so much. I thought she could do anything she set her mind to. But something stood in her way.
She slowly became destroyed from the inside out as she couldn't control her drinking. This led to more guilt and shame as she felt she was a horrible person and couldn't forgive herself. It was a vicious cycle as her life fell apart with each drink she took. Something held her back from complete surrender to God, and she tried too hard to take everything into her own hands.
That being said, this is what happened the night of her death.
It was around 7:30 pm on Feb 24th, 2006. I was 20 years old. Living in Orange, CA at the time, I was home in Phoenix for the weekend to celebrate a late Valentine's date with my long-distance boyfriend (now husband), Scott. We took a few blankets out to the park next to a lake, lit some candles, and brought all our favorite delicacies to snack on.
It was a beautiful night. We snuggled under the stars talking about life, love, and everything in between.
A few hours later, we walked hand in hand back to the car. I looked at my phone and had 4 missed calls from my dad and a few messages telling me I needed to come home right away. My heart sank. My stomach lurched. Somehow, I knew.
When Scott and I walked through the door, my dad was sitting on the couch with my sister.
There was so much pain in that moment that I can hardly remember what happened. My dad told me that my mom had gone to a hotel room with a friend. They had both been kicked out of a halfway house and didn't have anywhere to go that night. They decided to buy some booze, and drinking away their sorrows, they had both passed out. When my mom's friend woke up, she went over to my mom and noticed she wasn't breathing.
She frantically called an ambulance, but it was too late.
My mom was gone.
A few weeks later an autopsy officially declared the cause of death. Acute.Alcohol.Intoxication. She had drank so much, she had poisoned herself to the point of death. With so much alcohol in her system, she had blacked out and never woke up.
I felt dizzy, my body heavy and weak. I was numb to reality. Time froze. I did not care. Visitors came. Visitors left. People brought food. Days passed. I sat on the couch in a dazed state unable to move. I ate. I slept. I wept. I tried hard to be present in my own life.
The funeral was filled with hundreds of people from our old church, from our new church, her work, and numerous people from rehabs and friends from AA that she had touched.
I was in a dream, and wanted to disappear. This was not my life. I didn't want to see anyone or talk to anyone. How was I supposed to face my own life?
It has now been 5 years. I was engaged 9 months after my mom's death, and married a year later. I now have a husband, a house, 2 golden retrievers, an amazing church, incredibly supportive, loving friends and family, and a baby girl on the way.
But.
Sometimes, I still miss my mom. I will always miss my mom. She was my mom... and her life has a whole different meaning to me now. Now I know what it feels like to carry a life inside of me. Now I know a little bit of what she felt when she carried me for those 9 months in her womb. Now I have a whole new appreciation for how much she loved me.
At the same time, there's a part of me that's frustrated with her. She did this to herself. And now she won't get to experience the joys of being a grandparent because she made a lot of stupid choices. That being said, I don't want to hold on to anger, resentment, and the thoughts of "what could have been."
I want to remember the good times, and leave the bad. And since I can't ask her questions about what it was like to get pregnant and give birth to me, I like to think about what it means to me now to become a mother. I was her first-born, and I'm about to give birth to my first-born.
I bet she loved feeling my kicks inside of her, and watching me move in her stomach. I bet she dreamed of what I would look like, my wedding day, and what I would grow up to be like. She used to tell me that the day I came into this world was one of the most joy filled, exciting, happy moments of her life.
And now I can catch a glimpse of what that is going to feel like, because I for one feel like I cannot wait one more second to hold my baby girl in my arms!
More than anything in this world, I want to be real. Real about my journey, real about who I am, real about where I come from. Real about the fact that there are people out there that struggle with alcoholism and drug addiction that are truly amazing people, and real about the fact that you can't judge a book by it's cover.
Up until the last years of her life, Kathleen Marie Johnson was an amazing mom, wife, auntie, and friend. I wish Kaelyn could meet her the way she was when she was healthy, but I guess my baby girl will have to just wait until we get to heaven.
