One Week Update

October 10, 2023

Welp, today marks exactly one week since my mom passed. Not going to lie… today was harder emotionally.

I’m grateful that I had decided to move back to Farmington, NM, where my mom was living after I graduated from college in California, and that I was here when the tragedy struck. Yet being present for everything means my brain keeps replaying the events of that day.

I think my brother sensed I was in a funk today, or maybe we were both feeling especially emotionally vulnerable. To ease the sadness, we decided to drive around town and be nostalgic. Over the years, the Emerson family moved around a lot, and we never really had a place to call “home.” But we spent about seven years in Farmington, and many core childhood memories live there, so we wanted to revisit them.

We drove by our old houses on Cypress Street and Foothills Drive, our elementary school and daycare, and the places Mom took us every weekend to entertain us little kids. We then took a short walk at the Riverside Nature Center and shared stories about her. We reflected on how we could have been better children to her, realizing how many sacrifices she made, considering all the financial, physical, and emotional burdens she carried on her own.

We also came to the conclusion that we were happy and thankful for the moments we had with her and had truly felt the immense love she had for us. With that epiphany, we were able to finally breathe and release the worries we had carried about her over the years. It is comforting to know she is at peace.

I love that my brother and I are close and have a strong bond. I still find it funny because we hated each other as children, and Mom always nagged that we would become friends when we grew older. She got the dirty looks from us back then, but of course, moms know best!

One week has passed since Mom’s death, and time feels both impossibly slow and shockingly fast; grief makes everything feel weird.

Until then,

Katie