I think your twenties is a time of major reflection. Or maybe it's just what I've been through in the past two months. It's probably both. I knew I would for the most part hold in my sadness after my dad died and distract myself and stay freakishly busy like I did when my grandpa died. Wrong. I got home from the funeral and wham! This has hit me like a punch in the gut. And I'm in a new town, meeting new people. I'm slowly learning people I trusted, I don't anymore. I'm learning people are different to your face than when you're not around. I'm learning the Spirit can be really hard to hear even in the still of the quiet night. I'm learning not every boy is who he says he is, but not every guy is untrustworthy. I'm learning the people you thought you'd surely never really be friends with tend to be the people you need most in your life. I'm learning to let go of regrets of what I could've done, should've done, would've done differently to save my dad. I'm learning how to not blame it on myself. I'm learning that sometimes being quiet speaks the loudest. I'm trying to figure out what the mission for my life is despite all the millions of options that float around us young adults everyday, tempting us, promising us, confusing us, and giving us a different life path with every option. Not all are bad. But each outcome is different. And which is the best option? I'm learning how to be a better mother everyday by watching my mom, observing charity in my friends and good samaritans all around, learning from the example of Christ, trying to strengthen my individual talents and gifts. I'm learning how to not stress to the point of exhaustion about money, time and things I can't control. If all that weren't enough tangents floating around in my mind, I need to figure out how to really grasp the concept that my dad is not coming back. Yes, I'll see him again. But I need to figure out how I'm going to make it through THIS life without him. I don't just miss him, I miss his details. The individual jokes, hugs, voices, sayings, conversations that made him my daddy. I'm learning how to support my mom through this who now really is a true single mom. I'm learning that family is the most important thing in the entire world and to treasure every single moment with them. I'm learning how to stay myself in this weird world and be the person my family raised me to be. As I was crying on the phone to my cousin Brandon one night up at school he reminded me "Nicki, you have to push through no matter how hard things become. That's how we were raised and that's what we're going to do. We're Robinsons."
But, it has finally sunk in. I'm devastated. And at the time I need family the most, I'm away at school searching for anything and everything to help me through this. It takes everything to get out of bed in the morning. I don't care about school. I don't care about dating. I don't care about my social life. I spend the hours I should be at school on my knees pleading for relief. I spend the hours I should be on a date with the boy who gives me butterflies looking at pictures of my dad. I spend the time I should be living it up with my friends being a velcro child to my mom, never wanting to leave her side, practically hanging onto her leg so she can't let me go.
So mom being the amazing, loving mom she is, flew up to Utah to be with me. She knows when I'm truly at my breaking point, and boy am I. After the end of a long week of nursing an infection back to health and nursing my emotions back to a point of being acceptable, we spontaneously decided to drive home. I need home. The car ride was the best trip we've taken together. No bickering, no fighting for music, not one waste of time of togetherness. We laughed, we cried, we slept, we giggled like little girls, we bonded (who even knew mom and I could even get closer than we are), we relaxed, we appreciated every part of that trip. I will never forget that trip. I will never forget the grace my mom carries, the love she gives, the support she offers, the selflessness she has, the passion and strength she carries. She is the most amazing person I will ever know. She is my soulmate. At one point of the ride I said, "Mom, I'm really sorry for being such a shit when I was a teenager." Now given, I was a pretty great teenager when you really think about it. My downfall: the eye rolling, thinking "ugh omg mom, I'm 17...I'm an adult, and I don't need anyone telling me what to do...I'm miss know-it-all", the backtalk, the attitude. Ugh, it actually makes me sick to think of it. But the terrible teens hits us all right? I'm learning to deal with my guilt issues as well, as you can clearly tell.
But I'm home now. For the next week I am in the place that makes me most happy, with the people I love the most. I'm writing from my warm bed (not a shoddy twin bed), with my mom down the hall, my puppies downstairs asleep on their huge bed, my pictures lining the walls, the familiar smells filling the air, and the sense of my dad's presence around me. It is the first time in two months I have felt safe. Sometimes the only medicine is home. And no one can make the pain go away like a mom can.
I've read Les Miserables probably ten times and the quote that always struck me the most now brings me hope. "This hell from which you have come out is the first step towards Heaven. We must begin by that."
It is over. And now we heal. One tiny step at a time.
