The Worst Day of My Life - 5 years later

5 Years ago was the worst day of my life. It was the day my mom passed away after getting sick from something I caught from a visit to the anime club I used to go to. She had been waiting for her flu shot that year and hadn't gotten it yet. I probably wasn't the only avenue for what she caught, though her Caring Hands ladies were required to be vaccinated, so I'm willing to rule them out.

A strain of Swine Flu had been going around, and somehow I came down with it. I spent the weekend on the couch downstairs, working my way through 2 bouts of fever. I  was unable to do the things Mom needed me to do without her ladies there to help her.

Actually I don't know for sure what it was I got sick from, but there's not much left to guess what it was.

Where my Mom was, there's a big hole from her absence. Her empty bed is gone - not my choice. It's a choice I wish people hadn't forced on me. It wasn't costing me any money to keep her bed where it was. It wasn't bothering me to keep it. Even my younger sister said something along the lines of not wanting to come into the house and see the empty bed there, and then ended up not visiting a whole lot after all that anyway.

And then there's the emptiness in my life and in my heart with her gone. Part of my self-confidence also died that day. I don't know how I came through it. Those first 9 to 10 months was a very dark time for me. I spent nearly all the time crying, watching a lot of TV. I wasn't actively engaging in the things I did - I was just numbly going through the motions. I was ready to give up.

My social life also pretty much imploded about a month later, right on schedule. An accident and misunderstanding on Facebook led to some malicious cyber bullying which ended up imploding the anime club due to a selfish group of brats who had nothing better to do. It was "funny" to them. There's nothing funny in calling people something a name they aren't. And they wanted to blame me for that. No, that's all on you. Almost on cue a month later was also the email that closed the opportunity of just being "allowed" to attend one anime convention. It just amazed me how unprofessional some people can be when it comes to negative criticism.

I still have no answers to what happened this day, 5 years ago. Why hadn't we made better choices the day before and gotten Mom to a hospital? When did she actually pass away? I had seen her alive just before 1 p.m. and found her in bed and unresponsive around 3 p.m. I was upstairs messing around with a computer I was given and gotten running again. I don't even remember why I had decided to shut it down and go do some errands for Mom when I did. 

I would love to have some closure and some answers. And in some ways, I still have some shock, disbelief, and guilt from it. And I'm sure other people blame me, but Mom made the choices she did. I don't even know if I had been able to get her into a hospital would her life had been saved. Some people would say it's not good to dwell on what could have been, but it's been hard to get it out of my mind.

There's a lot of things from 2009 I would love to do over again and change. Maybe 5 years is long enough to have grieved over Mom. I feel angry at times thinking that my sisters might not have grieved long enough. I certainly haven't seen how they dealt with it a whole lot. I mean, it's not a freaking pet - this was our mother. People are born and die every day, but still you get only 1 set of parents.

Some people said I was in "bereavement" but I know there was some pretty deep depression in there. There were lots of moments I wished to get sick and have it kill me. That's not a good way to go. I have no idea how I got through it. Or perhaps I haven't yet. I haven't yet decided.

A year later my grandfather's cat, Griz, died. And just last year Mom's companion dog, Melody, barely managed to finish out 2013. Mom must have needed Melody more than I did. And odd to notice, but Ariel, the dog we had for some time before Melody came along, died 10 years ago in January.

But at the same time, Marmalade, a cat who found us in the middle of a snow storm in December 2003, has been with us for as long. 7 years ago, an evicted renter left us Negi, a cat that I took in and saved his life. And last year, while Melody's liver was failing, my older sister managed to catch and tame a kitten that a feral cat had given birth to on the property and raised before she and the other kittens were ultimately trapped and removed. She still has the kitty, and is perhaps the first life that was born here since we've been here.

The only memorial we could do for Mom was cremation and and loose collective of some friends and family the Friday of the week after. I had spent the next 3 days without sleep dealing with her online stuff. I managed to cancel 5 book orders she hadn't gotten yet and weren't shipped. I found out she had nearly maxed out a credit card she wasn't supposed to have. I saw her irresponsible and erratic payments she was almost making on it. I sent out a lot of letters telling people to sod off and they weren't getting anything.  In the meantime, I'm still waiting for something paranormal caused by Mom. So far, I haven't anything to report.

I wanted to mark this day with family, getting together and remembering Mom, but it seems like I'm the only one who wants to do it. So I typed up this blog entry. 5 years ago, everything changed, and I still miss Mom.

Be the curator of your things

I recently cleaned out the top drawer of my dresser looking for my Suzumiya Haruhi solar-powered Flash Plates that I bought at an anime convention some time ago. The problem with them (and why I stopped using them) was the way the Mikuru Flash Plate had come off the little soft-metal hook connecting it to the keyring. It had dropped off and cracked a corner which I had fixed with super glue at some point, but it was off its keyring.

Also going through the drawer, I found my $50 Canadian bill miniature replica in plastic, a souvenir I bought and used on my keyring, also broken due to use. I promised myself I would fix that, but I hadn't yet.

I also found I collect pens and batteries. Not intentionally. It just happens. Good thing I have a digital voltmeter. I tested all the ones I found and threw away the weak ones. A number of them were still good strong batteries so I kept them. I tested the pens I found and tossed the ones that wouldn't write easily. I have no idea how I ended up with them.

But getting back to being curator of your things. This means make sure your collection of things (or collections) are in a presentable shape. Not broken. Useable if you so wish. I took up the task of seeing to it that my mini replica Canadian money keychain thingy would at least have a way to be attached to a keyring should I choose to use it that way again, and the Mikuru Flash Plate was attached to its keyring as well. (The sorting of pens and batteries is also a part of this.) The keyrings for the Flash Plates had these additional little spring rings that I could use to attach things to them, so the remainder of the spring loaded but easily broken hook was clipped off and the little ring used. It looks good.

I found a Sailor Venus decorated battery powered travel alarm clock that lost its adjustment knobs on the back and leaked battery corrosion residue on the battery terminals, which explains a lot why I haven't used it in years. I would take it with me when we went to Anime North. It was set to go off at 7 am, because you shouldn't sleep in late while in Canada. I cleaned off the corrosion and it works again, but I still need to figure out how to replace the time set and alarm set knobs.

Realizing my Gekota mascot strap also used that same annoying hook thing, I used an extra mini spring ring on that, too. I had already used super glue on the pin that screwed into it. I had lost a number of Sailor Moon mascot keychain figures because these little attachments would slip out. I lost 2 Super Sailor Jupiter mascot figures because of this.

Make sure your collection or set of something is complete. Fix what can't be easily replaced right away. Restore what can be repaired. And replace what can be inexpensively replaced.

I also made sure my collection of Tamago-chi toys did not have batteries still inside them. One of them I bought while in Canada one year (2006) and the Ura-Tama came direct from Japan. That really impressed a few people when they saw how more sophisticated its program was.

Some of the objects I dug out of my top dresser drawer might not have been touched in a while, but it's not hurting me or costing me anything to keep them. But that doesn't mean I should let them look like crap.