Unexpected

When my Mom first went into the Hospital on Saturday September 13th, and she was on the ventilator, I went into her room and her hair was getting all tangled from her head thrashing around because of the discomfort from the ventilator. So, when I saw her hair getting all tangled I took her little orange hair band out of her head, and untangled her hair. I put the hair band on my wrist, like I would with mine when I take it out of my head. It was orange ( I said that). I thought it was an interesting color, as all of my hair bands like this are black. I wore it around my wrist the entire time she was in the hospital.

A few days later, she had come off the ventilator, and seemed to be doing well. However, because of some very painful headaches (which eventually we figured was because of her CO2 Levels being so high, and her oxygen levels being so low) she had to go in to have a couple of cat scans of her head. The put these sensors on her head in her hair and they made her hair all goopy. She hadn't been able to have her hair washed, which I knew bugged her, and she mentioned something about her hair in her face. I asked her if she wanted me to pull her hair back for her. She said Yes. So I did, but instead of using her orange hairband on my wrist, I pulled the black one from my hair and used that to pull her goop-filled hair back the best I could. At the time I remember her looking around the room and saying "I had a hair tie here somewhere, but I don't know where it went." I kinda smiled inside about my secret that I had been the one to take her hair band out, and that I was wearing it on my wrist at the time. I don't know why, but I wanted to keep that hairband. Kinda the whole time she was in the hospital I figured she wasn't coming out. Of course I had many bouts of positive and/or hopeful thinking that I was wrong, but I also think in a way that I knew she wasnt. I wanted to keep this hair band to help me think of her and remember her, and kinda keep me close to her.

I wore the hair band for a few weeks after she passed, and during her funeral I made a point to put it on. But then after a while, I started using the band as an actual hair band myself when I couldn't find any black ones to use. The truth is, I wasn't attached to the band like I wanted to be. It didn't really make me think of her they way I had hoped it would. Eventually, I lost the band like I have with all of my other hair bands in the past.

Tonight, I got home from celebrations at my Dad's house and I started to pick up the house a bit since I was due to feed Cam in an hour, thinking I might as well stay up and get a bit done so I have less to do tomorrow. As I picked up the bottom half of my lipstick so Maddie wouldn't get into it in the morning and cause a mini disaster, (like drawing with lipstick on my walls or something right before my Christmas Dinner guests arrive) I noticed way back in the corner where my wall and sink meet, there sits the orange band! It has been months since I have seen the thing! I am pretty sure that I have looked in that corner since I have lost the band, and have never noticed it before.

Suddenly, the band gave me warm feelings, and sad feelings, and just general feelings of Mom. I started to cry right away. It is just so ODD, that it was there, I never noticed it before tonight, Christmas Eve, and that at the time I had lost it, I really wasn't feeling the connection I was hoping it would give me with her, and now it was doing all that I had wanted it to before.

ODD. I can only say one thing. Merry Christmas to you too Mom. You were missed tonight and I love you.