Unicorns

Me and Rob, with Peter S. Beagle

Rob and I went to NYCC the past weekend.  The picture there?—>

That’s us with Peter S. Beagle. He wrote The Last Unicorn.   I also got to meet Tess Gerritsen–Grandpa helped her when she wrote Gravity.

It’s the small things like that which catch me and make me sad.  Because they’re the things that I would’ve told Mom, and that I would’ve posted on facebook, and she’d like them.

And when I caught myself thinking a signed copy of The Last Unicorn would’ve been the perfect Christmas present.

Those moments, I have to remind myself that Mom’s gone.

But that moment–crouched in front of the table to hear Mr. Beagle talk (he’s very soft-spoken), and telling him that Mom got me into  the movie, and then the book, and that she’d passed away the previous week–that was worth the price of admission, worth the aggravation of the massive crowd.  I have to thank Jennie (@Autumn2May) so very much for mentioning that she saw him.  If not for that, I never would have known to even look for him, much less look in the Artist Alley area of the con.

Grieving is something of an odd process for me. It tends to come in bits and pieces. I attribute this to having lived in New England for so long–the same thing happened when my grandmother passed away, and then with my grandfather. Every now and then, I still have a moment where the phone rings, and I half expect to hear my grandmother’s voice, though those times are much more rare than right after. That’s sort of how I’m reacting with Mom–those little moments I mentioned earlier, and expecting to see her name pop up to like pictures or statuses on facebook.

I made one very conscious decision–I will not remember Mom as she was in the hospital. I cannot reconcile that memory with all the other memories I have. Instead, I’ll remember her from her visit at Christmas, and as she was at my wedding in Alaska. And I will always remember the silly faces that she would sometimes make for the camera.

And the unicorns.

So many unicorns