After mom died, I remember Aaron saying “Losing Kim (mom) feels like being a little kid permanently lost in a grocery store. We’re aimlessly wandering around crying and shouting “mom!?” over and over again. I feel lost.”
And…That’s it. That’s what it feels like without mom. The lost-without-mom feeling never goes away. If you’ve lost a parent or parental figure you’re close to, you also know that horribly empty child-like feeling. Kassie and I frequently find ourselves aimlessly wandering around the metaphorical grocery store way too often – sometimes letting out a quiet “Mom? Where are you?” and wanting so badly to hug her and know everything is okay again.
But mom isn’t there. We can’t hug her. We can’t see her. We can’t sip and spill tea with her anymore.
It’s really not okay and never will be. Life without her isn’t the same.
When mom died: everything changed in a permanent, too-soon, way-too-shitty way. And while we’ll never leave lost-in-the-grocery-store-mode: we’ll carry mom with us in everything we do. She’s our bestie. She was, and always will be, the coolest, selfless, most bamf mom we could’ve ever wished for.
We love her dearly. Always have, always will.
Growing up, mom always said: “If god lined up all the children in the world – you know who I’d pick? Kari, Kassie, and Aaron. Every time.”
So if god lined up all of the mom’s and grandma’s in the world, you know who we’d pick?
Our mom and grandma Kim McCorkle-Harbath. Every damn time.
So today, in honor of mom’s birthday, we are going to share a couple of Kassie’s mom-focused journal entries that make us all laugh. And we know they would make mom laugh, too. Here they are…
Snippets from Kassie’s Jo(urnal)
The person I dream about all the time: Kari and mom and dad. Elijah Wood. (Yes, Kassie originally wrote her fam and then realized maybe it would be cooler if she put Elijah Wood, so she crossed our names out and put Elijah instead.)
My favorite teachers: Kim Harbath (Kassie and I were homeschooled.)
And an all-time favorite entry, mentioning mom and the nachos she made on a very memorable Superbowl Sunday…
Dear Jo,
Today we went to church (me and mom) and then we went to b-fast with Rod! Then she made nachos and we watched the super bowl and a really weird thing happened at the superbowl today with justin and janet jaksen! Well that’s all I had to say! – Kassie
Kim McCorkle-Harbath Memorial Bench & Scholarship
If you knew our mom and would like to celebrate her birthday in a meaningful-give-back-to-Ogden-way, you can donate to her memorial scholarship at Weber State University via this link or visit her memorial bench at Kaffe Mercantile on 26th, grab a coffee, and write a little note of gratitude for the gratitude tree.
