Hobby Lobby

If Michael's arts and crafts store is my place, then Hobby Lobby was Cory's.  So sometimes when I am missing her unbearably, I go there just to walk through the aisles and remember her.  I went there yesterday.

I could see the ghost of her next to me in front of the candy colored tubes of acrylic paint...excited to be buying art supplies, eyes bright with possibilities.  If I remember correctly, they used to run about four bucks a pop, so I'll tell her to pick out five.  Five were never enough, and maybe because I didn't make art at that time, I didn't realize how difficult a task it was to narrow down all those glorious colors to a mere handful.  Why didn't I buy her a cartful?  What kind of mother was I?

The tears begin, and through them, I spy a few of her favorite colors, touch them, needing some type of confirmation that yes, she did once exist, yes, we did come here together all the time, laughing and talking.  Think of the good times...cherish those memories.  Isn't that the trite advice given by people who aren't in this situation, safe to dole out stupid one liners that they will never fully understand?  It's such crap because placing yourself back there often burns even more.  Never again?  Never???

Then you begin to beat yourself up for stupid shit like not buying your child two hundred dollars worth of acrylic paint at a time.  I was furious with myself about this.  How could I have limited her creativity?  Limited her experience?  Especially considering that she only had a short time to develop as an artist.  There were only so many trips to Hobby Lobby in her future.  There was only so much time left to paint.  Only so many canvases left to fill.

Speaking of canvases, I turned the corner and wandered towards that aisle.  I took one peek down there and fled in shame.  She'd always wanted a truly gigantic canvas and I'd dragged my feet, letting her practice first on a great succession of 8 x 10s, 11 x 14s, even 16 x 20s...but never took the plunge on that cover-the-wall-behind-your-couch-fully sized canvas.  Now it's too late.  No dainty earrings for her and no wall encompassing paintings.  Failed her.

I escaped into an aisle of scrapbook stickers, and let me just share that those can be pretty damn depressing.  You wouldn't really figure stickers to prompt sorrow, but they are milestone heavy:  graduation, wedding, baby, family vacations.  It's enough to make a bereaved mother want to just lay down and give up.

There really aren't a lot of scrap booking/art journaling materials out there to honor grief, the passing a loved one, or any type of sad occasion.  This is why I was so ridiculously excited to come across some Day of the Dead stickers at an expo with my friend a few weeks ago.  Finally, someone has acknowledged that my loved one died.

Of course, that's pretty much the only item I've ever seen of the sort, so I will continue to take my sad selfies and draw my "grief girls" as an artist friend of mine calls my drawings.  Someone needs to illustrate this experience- why should only the happy occasions get playtime? I struggle to feel it at all.

Finally, after walking past the sketching pencils and feeling my heart sort of turn in on itself, as I remembered a certain Christmas that consisted of art supplies and squeals of joy, I could take no more.  Having gained no real comfort in walking the aisles-,just reminders of what I'd lost, I made for the door.

On the way out, I stopped at a display of journals, and paused, my eyes having landed on a little girl style of journal with a cat on the front and a feathered pen.  I picked it up and transported myself back in time to Limited Too at the Kalamazoo mall with a eight or nine year old Cory Girl.  There was a nightgown/diary set, pale yellow background with a popcorn print.  She had to have it, and I couldn't have been more delighted to give it to her.  She was adorable in that little spaghetti strapped popcorn nightgown, and I can still see her blonde head bent studiously over the popcorn diary (which had a matching pen and was, indeed, scratch and sniff).  My heart leapt in my chest to see her recording her thoughts and impressions so seriously...she likes to write, she's going to be a writer just like me!

That memory while I stood in the aisle of Hobby Lobby with that stupid cat journal in my hands was so crisp and so clear.  She was close enough to touch...and completely unreachable.  Someone might as well punch their way through my chest cavity, grab up my heart, and pull it right out of my body.

I put the journal down, tears still streaming, and ran to my car in the parking lot where I could sob in private.

Four years in July.  This is still my day to day life.  It hasn't gotten better.  It hasn't gotten easier.  The people who say it will?  Full of crap.