What Do I Do Now?

5 a.m. Phone Call

4:30 a.m. I hear his phone ring in my sleep, 'Shit, I just meant to nap'. He answers quickly.  I dont move even though I'm wide awake now. There wasnt a need to ask who was on the other line. I already knew. The only time someone calls this early is if it was an emergency or someone passed. That wee morning call was the hospital to tell us the latter, revealing my mother had finally passed. Even though the words spoken from the nurse to my husband were unheard, I could tell by his sudden stiff demeanor the exact words they'd spoken to him.
"Baby, get up. That was the hospital. She just passed and we gotta hurry up there. They need you."
I didn't want to be needed. I needed to be left alone. I needed to scream. I needed to cry.
I needed my Momma.
Fuck everyone and everything else. I didnt care who wanted or needed me. I needed someone. I needed her.
Suddenly the woman I'd spent years arguing like sisters with was the only person I needed, the only one I wanted. For the first time in my 38 years and 5 days old life, my Momma didnt answer when I cried her name.
Momma wasnt going to answer.
Momma would never answer her phone again.
She'd never reply 'huh' when I annoyingly called her by her first name.
Shed never make me tuna salad, hide me vienna sausages because theyre my favorite snack, make me a lemon ice box pie for every holiday, buy me a birthday cake, comfort me when I was sick, defend me, argue with me, laugh with me, cry with me. Id never have those small little things I'd taken for granted my entire life.
As I held her hand against my face, I begged her body to argue with me, cuss at me, SOMETHING! Id take her cursing me every moment of every day as long as she were still here
Momma was gone.
My momma is gone.

Its crazy how much you miss the things that your mother did that made you upset or drove you crazy your entire life. The moment shes gone is the moment you'll be begging God to let you have back.