I find myself focusing very hard on stemming the random flow of tears these days; not out of any sense of crying as weakness or a need to put up any kind of front of strength. I am perfectly comfortable feeling weak and giving in to said weakness, either while I'm alone or surrounded by any number of relative strangers.

Ask anyone who knows me, they'll tell you that I am capable of bursting into tears while describing an especially moving long distance commercial.

These days I feel like the tears aren't helping; that's why I find myself attempting to halt them before they begin. I've shed so many that I'm not sure where they keep coming from at this point, but nothing has changed...and I'm pretty exhausted with the effort.

So now I'm trying to stop, to breathe, to think through the onslaught before it has a chance to begin. Does this mean I'm moving on to any kind of acceptance? No, I don't think so because I'm still pretty sure that Mom is off on vacation in Cuba, making friends with her lovely Cuban waiters, exchanging addresses and feeling so blessed to have made a connection with people whose lives are so different from her own.

No, I can't accept that She's gone, not even as I'm dropping off her clothes at the Sally-Ann and then suffering a panic attack at the completion of the task. I just can't keep crying, now I just have to remember how to smile.