The Two-Week Mark.

Not to turn my snarky, sarcastic blog into a sad place, but I’m not particularly funny lately. Unless I’m making some inappropriate joke at an inappropriate moment to make the sad people around me laugh.

The two-week mark is strange. Because when your 67-year-old, healthy, sassy mother’s heart suddenly stops beating for no good reason, people around you are still in shock as well. They can’t imagine what you’re going through. But the two-week mark is also the time when you’re expected to get back to the routine. Back to work. Back to normal. Well – the new normal.

So, I have this to report: I’m trying. I’m working. I’m hanging out with my friends. I’m taking the dogs for walks to the lake with my dad. I’m watching The Big Bang Theory reruns while making dinner and wasting time playing Candy Crush on my phone. And I have the uncontrolled fits of crying down to once a day. Usually.

The problem is that as the shock wore off, reality set in. And reality kinda sucks. My mom has left this void that is like a hole I keep tripping on. A dozen times a day. Every time I think of something I should tell her. Or something I need to ask her. Or something I want to gripe about. Or a decision I have to make. Or advice I need. Or if anything goods happens. Or anything bad. Or anything at all.

December 23rd, the day we were burying my mom, my parents’ sweet little dog died. (Cue the Depeche Mode, right? I don’t want to start any blasphemous rumors, but I think that God’s got a sick sense of humor?) Anyway, their older dog that followed my mom everywhere? Still alive. The younger one? Died, inexplicably, that morning. My father was devastated. But in his state, it was more like icing on a cupcake (because heartbreak when you’re already heartbroken and tears when you were crying anyway…seem to get washed away in the flood). So after the tragic morning at the cemetery, we all went over to my dad’s that afternoon to bury the dog in the backyard. And I made inappropriate jokes. And people laughed.

And then we went through all the motions of celebrating Christmas Eve and Christmas Day like good little soldiers. Cause that’s what you do.

So, I’ll undoubtedly keep tripping on the void like an uncoordinated, three-legged dog. But, as I said to my dad Saturday, on our way back from picking out my mom’s grave stone, it only hurts this much because we had it so good. And that sure makes it hard to complain.