freestyle (goodbye oma)

it's five a.m. and sleep is nowhere to be found. words are erratic things that come and go and I find myself writing sentences in my head at the strangest times, stream of consciousness working overtime. the words, they won't go away until they find some sort of permanent home, aka the blog, the journal. sometimes it's not enough to say them-- writing's the thing.

and so ward's grandma (oma) died friday night and we all knew it was coming, but still. we were all hoping, everyone was hoping. she was a life force, southern in every sense of the word, armed with the kind of strength you only read about in books. she was the center of the family, the matriarch. she lived every moment of everyday of every year for 85 years, so her life was full (I can only hope for so much) but she was suffering and it was her time. but what does that even mean? it just feels like what I should say. it's never easy, it's not designed to be that way.

I stood in the back of the chapel today, holding ezra, listening to oma's daughter speak (oma's daughter being ward's mom, my amazing mother-in-law carlene) and I was taken with her beautiful words. at the end of the day, she is a girl who lost her mother. and she talked about this image she had of her own mother, of someone who rode down a hill on a bike-- hands gripping the handle bars but legs straight out, hair flying wildly, screaming joyously, enjoying the ride all the way down.

we didn't make it all the way through the funeral, ezra and me. we waited out in the car and I let him climb the seats while I did some thinking. I watched ezra eat goldfish crackers and I thought about oma, about motherhood. i thought about the brevity of life, about how I might feel if I had to say goodbye to my mom, my dad. and I pushed those thoughts from my mind because I couldn't bear it. instead, I reorganized my make-up bag so as not to have to think about the things that are too hard to think about and I let myself think about stupid things and I watched ezra eat raisins and for about thirty seconds, all was right with the world. and then I thought about ava and what might currently be going through her mind. it was only a year ago when she first starting asking me questions about death and of course, I couldn't help but think of our first conversation on the subject. she sat with her daddy at the funeral, up in the special section for family. and ward, who looked so handsome in his suit that I thought I might pass out. all these things, running through my mind as I sat in the car with ezra climbing all over the place and a bra that did not fit like oprah says it's supposed to and shoes that were pinching my toes and a newly organized make-up bag and tears that had to be carefully wiped away.

I know now that I need to get at least one more hour of sleep before the day begins. and I know that I want my daughter to someday say that her mom lived life like she was riding a bike down a hill-- legs straight out, hair flying wildly. I know that much.