Mum Loved: Tom Jones

To say that I'm a major music geek is a bit of an understatement. I've been to concerts both at home and abroad in the triple digits, own hundreds of CDs and have an iPod stuffed to the gills with songs & music videos. I've come by my love of music honestly. You could say that a passion for music was in my genes ~ my Mum always had her favourites too. 


As a wee kid in the '70s, I remember my parents and their friends traveling downtown to catch a certain famous Welshman, Mr. Tom Jones in concert.

Coping: Comfort Eating

You often hear stories of people in the midst of great stress, be it a job-loss, marriage breakdown or death of a loved one, unable to eat. No appetite, no will to nosh...and as the upset over their loss continues, they get skinnier and skinnier...


I am not that person.
I'm the opposite. I cannot stop eating.


It wouldn't be such a bad thing if I was filling the void that I feel with vibrant green leafy things.


Nope. Not even close. Healthy nourishment is not on the menu right now. Grease, sugar and carbs are my best friends offering comfort like nothing else. During the first week without Mum, there was this amazing salad prepared, a symphony of different lettuces mixed with a rainbow of bell peppers, crunchy walnuts, mellow cheese, tart Granny Smith apple slices... it was GORGEOUS.

Milestone: First Birthday

Friends and family much wiser and more experienced than me have hesitantly (and yet, very kindly) told me that the first year after losing your Mum is the most difficult. True to their words I am finding that daily living is proving to be wearisome, fraught with anxiety and melancholy emotions. The reality of not having my Mum a telephone call away pops into my mind repeatedly again and again...and again. Just getting through the day is a job in itself -- a job that I never, ever wanted to occupy, but yet here I am....


The arrival of holidays, anniversaries and annual special events are usually to be looked forward to, the highlights of the year, right? Unfortunately, I am now part of the club that realizes that they bring with them a unique disquiet and pain that the daily grind doesn't recognize. Many of us spend these earmarks in the company of loved ones, and the concept of such occasions without them is just too much to even consider.


My first major event without Mum... my birthday, snuck up on me this past week. 

The Heart Does Break

After my Mum passed away this March, I didn't have it in me to do much of anything... I was too numb or in a flurry of tears. My long running blog, Lose That Girl, was the least of my worries but fears of my readers mistakenly thinking that my pop culture playroom had become abandoned got the best of me. Here's my first baby steps at writing again as originally posted on Lose That Girl two weeks ago...

Hello... faithful readers & occasional visitors.

I'm so sorry to have disappeared quite suddenly a few weeks back (I must thank Blogger's automatic posting feature for making it appear somewhat that I was *here*). It's not in my nature to just *vanish* -- since I typically hang out here each & every day for a spell, and I feel my absence should be addressed ever so briefly.

I tend to keep my most personal moments private & refrain from writing about them on my site but life as I have known it -- forever -- has changed drastically for me. My beloved Mum died almost three weeks ago after a year long battle with lung cancer. My family & I are devastated and the painful process of resurfacing to our "normal" lives is proving difficult. "Normal" will now be forever changed and I think it might take awhile for us to all find our way. I haven't had the heart to write since, but I'm hoping that this first post back on the other side of normal might help me find the path that I had started...

The most routine tasks are tough right now, and I'm not shy in saying that I'm looking for solace...somewhere, anywhere. I have been trying to read a new book called 'The Heart Does Break: Canadian Writers on Grief and Mourning' compiled by Jean Baird and George Bowering (published by Random House). It's a collection of personal recollections of renowned authors on the loss of a loved one. It's painful to read and I can see my own situation mirrored in the prose, especially within the moving "Her Great Art" by Jill Frayne about her wonderful mother, June Callwood. Frayne writes, "we're different without her...June was the centre and every distance out from her has shifted, every axis on a new tilt...I'm a different woman with my mother gone. Less brave, more ordinary. If this is grief, it feels like vertigo, a kind of motion sickness. I'm making myself over, without my mother. Now that she doesn't call me, or put flowers in my room, or settle an appraising eye on me, I'm not who I was...".

It's too early to say whether this book will help me deal, but at least it makes me feel like I'm not alone in feeling so lost right now.

I'm hoping to find it in me to post more regularly soon - at least Blogger's automatic posting function will make it seem so. :)

** originally published on my pop culture blog, Lose That Girl **

Welcome...

We may hail from different countries, practice differing cultures & religions, but unfortunately we are all bound together by the devastation that descends upon us when a cherished loved one dies.

The passing of my mother has been by far the most crushing loss that I've ever experienced. I'm hoping that this blog may help me cope, and come to terms with the rollercoaster ride of emotions that I'm feeling day in, day out.


Experts, friends...everyone says that the first year is the most difficult. For once I'm embarking on a journey that I'm not fully prepared for. Even as an adult, my Mum was the person that I'd turn to when uncertainty reigned. Now that she's gone, I'm feeling adrift - it's the most unsettling feeling.