I’m sitting on the floor in the spot I always sat when I was at mom’s house…her lazy boy was just to my left, a wicker table with 8 tweezers inside the drawer between us.

My mother’s home is empty.

I sit here with my back uncomfortably against the wall looking up at the big clock that mom always loved. It is slowly ticking the time away.

Time.

How fast it flew past us. She’s been in her cozy little home for 7 years…my home away from home. I spent many hours here laughing, crying, talking, praying, figuring out life’s problems, reminiscing about the past, planning out the future with the other half of me! Mom and me…here in this room.

Now I sit on the floor alone as the worship music plays, holding back tears, smiling at all the memories that are dancing in front of me.

I can’t imagine not being here 4 to 5 days a week with my mommy…in this home…in this room…in this spot with her a few short feet away.

Ultimately, Jesus calls his chosen home even as a new beloved child makes their presence known with a hearty cry…life goes on.

My mom is now in a rest home. One filled with frail, beautiful children of the King, just waiting for Him to call them home.

But as for me, all too soon, I will be left here without my mom, my rock, my best friend, the woman who held me as I sobbed while telling her she wouldn’t be leaving the ‘facility’ to return home.

She will never sit in her well worn blue Lazyboy chair with me next to her snuggled in my overstuffed chair telling her another story about how Chad’s pig chased the llama around the barn, making her laugh!

I don’t want to leave MY spot!

I desperately need to go back 7 years when she first moved in…Kyle was alive and Biscuit our Pit was a mere puppy!

I don’t like this new season in my life…it HURTS.

Tomorrow, I will go back to the nursing home where my mommy sits among bits and pieces of her former life hanging on the wall, including a favorite dresser filled with notes, cards, baby pics, and news paper clippings about her Tommy’s achievements. Her beloved cat collection will be staring down at us from a shelf above her bed, dad’s Stetson cowboy hat next to them.

On top of her dresser, filled with a lifetime of snapshot dreams, is a wedding book with pages of black and white photos of a 17 year old girl smiling next to a handsome farm boy of 18 with her satin gown flowing in front of them!

I will hand her a McDonald’s coke, sit next to her in the bed, put my arm around her shoulder, and tell her about how Chad’s pig chased both llamas and a goat around the barn…making her laugh as I quietly cry inside. Life goes on.