Wash Your Laundry

     I have been staring at this blank box where text is supposed to be setting up shop.  Only my second entry in...and the fear is swelling.  We tend to get stuck.  I look at kids and how they dive into things at times and I get so envious.  Somewhere along the line as adults we get scared.  We get stuck.  I just mentioned that we "get stuck" for the second time thus proving my point even to myself.
      Today's "new thing" is to wash the hamper of clothes that has been sitting in my Mom's closet for a few weeks now.  I've been plowing through events, tasks, holidays, meals, and other various to do list items all as a distraction. I believe my Dad is doing the same.  Paperwork, mail and envelopes don't hold her scent or cause her voice to ring out in one's ears.  The hamper will be different.
     When you take on the roll of the lunch meat of the sandwich nobody tells you how hard it will be.  You imagine having babysitters for the little ones.  You picture movie and game nights with laughter and popcorn.  Meals at a full table where wisdom and banter abound.  At least for a little while.  I neglected to think about the other parts.  When the other parts come we get stuck.  We want the olden days of easy and simple.  We crave vitality and excitement.  Those things have been replaced by illness and exhaustion.  People are like this in general though.  They cling to the known.  They hope like hell it will just come back if they think about it hard enough.  The essence of my mother is in that hamper.  Her perfumed pjs probably buried way deep down at the bottom are waiting for me.  I am stuck.
     This year has taught me about change, loss and finding the strength to move on.  I was practicing up until now.  Each event, though huge at the time was only to be minimized by the next.  My domino rally gaining in suspense right to the little ding of the bell at the end.  It's not the laundry that is hard to wash... it's the emptying of the hamper.  It's the letting go.  The NOT being stuck. That's what is hardest.