Weekly Reads: The Dead Moms Club

One of my favorite actresses, Casey Wilson, mentioned The Dead Moms Club: A Memoir about Death, Grief, and Surviving the Mother of all Losses on her podcast several months ago. As a member of the super shitty club herself, I was excited to pick it up based on her review. It was amazing. I may be slightly biased as Kate Spencer's mother also passed from pancreatic cancer, so there are portions of the book that were so eerily similar that it gave me goosebumps. But this book is basically the entire conversation that I would like to be able to sit down and have with my friends who have also gone through this experience, except I'd just cover myself in snot and tears and not get out a single comprehensible word. Someday that might change, but for now, this felt like that conversation I've been dying to have.

Of course there were tears, but more than anything there was just so much, "yes, this. exactly this." as I felt like someone actually GOT IT. I, too, want to stand on a table when I'm having a particularly rough day or week or month and say, "DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND MY MOM DIED?!?!" because that's how I feel. I would recommend this for anyone who has gone through a loss, but especially those that have lost their mother. I want to buy a million copies of this and just pass them out as time goes on. I don't want anyone to join me in this super shitty club, but man, it's only a matter of time until that happens right? Because that's life. Uff da.

My rating: 5 snotty, tear filled stars with a side of 5 snot filled laughter stars

Summary from goodreads:

Kate Spencer lost her mom to cancer when she was 27. In The Dead Moms Club, she walks readers through her experience of stumbling through grief and loss, and helps them to get through it, too. This isn't a weepy, sentimental story, but rather a frank, up-front look at what it means to go through gruesome grief and come out on the other side.

An empathetic read, The Dead Moms Club covers how losing her mother changed nearly everything in her life: both men and women readers who have lost parents or experienced grief of this magnitude will be comforted and consoled. Spencer even concludes each chapter with a cheeky but useful tip for readers (like the "It's None of Your Business Card" to copy and hand out to nosy strangers asking about your passed loved one).

Views from Heaven

A year ago today, my mom passed away. When everyone says the first year is the hardest, I hope they're right. All the firsts without her: Christmas, birthdays, holidays, and just all the moments where you reach for your phone just to check in, or share a happy moment, or seeking advice for a frustrated situation, only to realize that she won't be there to pick up. I can certainly say the first year has been hard.

Long before my mom got sick, we were talking about death and dying and she mentioned that once she passed she'd find as many ways to come back and say hi as she could. She mentioned it again while she was sick, and I knew she wouldn't break a promise. Over the last year I've had so many moments where she's popped in to say hello or check on me, some crazy and unexplainable (just like her, ha) and some super small and easy to miss if you weren't looking for them. Luckily for me, I've been looking for them. And they always come when I need her the most. Because that's how she's always been as a mom. Always there for me, even when I don't need her, or think I don't, but even more so when I admit I do.

When I was a little kid, I used to love looking up at the clouds. Whenever the sun would be spilling through the clouds I always pictured everyone up in heaven looking down on all their loved ones, sharing a bit of their love and the beauty of heaven. I hadn't really thought about that until last Friday when I went for a run. I started off, and then went back to my vehicle for my phone. It was a recovery run, so why not snap some pictures or send some texts along the way. 

And then this was my view for the first mile. Light beaming down from the heavens. Just when I needed it.

Miss you like crazy mom.