Year One

I've been writing this blog in my head for almost a year now...thinking about what I want to say about having endured a year of my life without my Mother in it.  I had many grand ideas and some less than rational thoughts.  Today, none of them seem to matter.  So I'm just gonna wing it.

Me & my Mom in June 1966...just me and my bestie hanging out

August 19, 2016 marks the first year anniversary of my Mom, Sharon's, death.  To tell the truth, I wasn't sure what I would find when I finally got to this day.  I was hoping to have the mystical and elusive 'closure' that so many people seem to think we need after the death of a loved one.  I've come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as closure.  After suffering through the deluge of emotion and the repeated waves of sorrow at each passing 'first without Mom,' I find myself feeling less complete than I expected.

I thought by now the almost tangible hole left in my middle when she was torn from my life (because you don't really 'lose' your Mom, do you?  She's ripped from you, isn't she?) would have healed over a bit leaving insensitive scar tissue but feeling more or less intact and solid.  That could not be further from the truth.

Truth is the hole is still there.  I imagine the edges are pink and sensitive still but more or less solid.  However, it doesn't take a lot to get them raw and bleeding again.  I don't think I'll ever be really whole again.

So, as is my habit from childhood, I decided to poke the bear.  What can I say?  I'm a little bit of a masochist, apparently.

I've spent my downtime this week going through the huge suitcase of photographs I found at Mom's house last summer when I cleared it out in preparation to sell.  I spent a lot of the time alternately laughing my ass off and bawling my eyes out.  There are a lot of really good pictures that I didn't know existed and many more that I had forgotten about.  OMG I was a skinny kid all the way through high school.  If I knew then what I know now, I never would have been sad about being 'fat'.

Criminy!

But I digress.

I found some corkers in there, too, of Mom.  My goal for this weekend is to get some more of them scanned and 'shopped to share for posterity.  Just a few, mind you.  I would not dilute her memory or sully her life by plastering it all over the Internet.*  My Mom was a very private person.  To put a bunch of pictures of her on the internet without her permission feels like disrespect to me. That was not her style.  I wouldn't do that to her any more than I would scatter her ashes in Nebraska.

She was a Colorado girl through and through.  That's where she'll be once I can bring myself to let go of that box of ashes.

Turns out I have a lot less to say than I thought I would.

tl:dr?

Love you, Mom.  Love you gobs.

*More than a couple people in my life took this the wrong way.  I didn't mean to imply that I think sharing pictures of your loved ones is bad.  I don't think it is necessarily.  I just don't think my Mom would have liked it.  So now I'll just put my foot back in my mouth where it clearly belongs.  Please accept my apologies.

Emergence

As I typed the title up there today, I was instantly and perhaps predictably reminded of a nascent butterfly struggling from the crysalis. It's a tired metaphor to be sure.  But, it's all I have today.

It is coming up on eight months since Mom died...on the 19th.  I still have really bad days.  Days when I can't even believe it's real.  Days when the realization catches me unaware and I'm back on the floor in a heap with fresh wounds.  That sounds really dramatic. But, it's basically the truth of the matter.  The truth cuts.  Every time.

Every day I wish her back.  Every day I look at her picture and wonder what the HELL happened to make her so sick even though I know it was the lifetime of smoking cigarettes.  In spite of that fact, she didn't deserve what she got.  Nobody ever deserves that.  I wouldn't even wish it on the worst serial killer in the world.  Perhaps I am too compassionate.  I'm not sure that is really possible.  Some days I think of my compassion as an almost sacred duty in a world that is sadly lacking.

So I've become hyper aware of things that are bad for me.  I have, in fact, come full circle back to my self-awareness.  For the last eight months, and probably the year before that as well, I've been utterly unconcerned with my own well-being.  I've gotten no pleasure from eating or exercising or living.  It was all stuff I just did automatically.  Just keeping the lights on as it were.

I doubt it is a conincidence that this should happen in the spring.  Everything around me is becoming aware and emerging into the sunshine again.  Things are growing.  The fruit trees are flowering like madness.  The world continues to turn and the days continue to lengthen.  And with every robin sighted and every freshly germinated seedling, I am reminded of my promise to my Mother.  She told me, "Go and enjoy your life!  Make me proud."  In my pre-grieving state, I promised I would all the while not really believing it would be possible.

But, today, I'm starting to think that it is possible again.  I know I've said this before but the feeling is stronger today.  However, the feeling is also fleeting.  If I think on it for too long a time, it darts away to hide again behind the hole in my heart.  So I have started to give that feeling a side-eye glance from time to time approaching it like a skittish puppy who has lived a feral life and offering tidbits to coax it out into the sunshine and maybe even into my arms.

I have begun to court my own happiness.

You see, I've had a realization.  It wasn't a bolt from the blue.  It just sort of crept up on me in the night when I wasn't looking.  My Mom said to me, "Go and enjoy your life! Make me proud."  I heard her words but in my mind I separated them into two distinct things discreet from each other.  It was as if she had said, "Go and enjoy your life!  But make sure you do something super fantastic or I won't be proud of you."  I don't think that's what she meant at all.  I think she meant that it would make her proud to see me enjoy my life whatever that enjoyment might mean to me.  She meant for me to define that enjoyment and just enjoy the hell out it.

My Mom was a stoic woman.  She was not given to outbursts of emotion like I am.  She always said I was too sensitive for my own good.  I often wondered how she managed to raise me at all...her especially sensitive child.  She never tried to crush it out of me.  She never tried to make me tougher or more stoic.  She always, always let me be me.  Even when she didn't agree.  Maybe especially when she didn't agree.  Because she knew that, in my own time and in my own way, I would emerge and become the person I was meant to be.

Today, I am one step closer to it.  And I know she is proud.

The Price of Love is Grief

Late summer is often a whirlwind of activity here on The Slice.  This year is no different in that regard.  However, it is very different in a couple of ways.

The new job is going okay.  I am slowly adjusting to the change in schedule although it is troublesome.  I enjoy the contact with the patients and being a comfort to them within the scope of my practice.  However, I find myself losing interest in school.  I'm no longer certain I will continue my nursing studies in January.  Things have changed around me and within me.  While I do enjoy my work at the hospital, I find I miss my work at the lab more and more every day.  I often wonder if I shouldn't move on to something I've never done before.  A true fresh start.

My Mom died a month ago.  August 19 to be exact.  I was sitting at my computer reading my email and I thought I heard her say my name right next to my ear.  About 30 minutes later, I got the call that she was gone.  She was very, very sick and her passing is a blessing for her and all of us who knew and loved her.  I feel her absence every day.  She was my first best friend and my lifelong confidant and supporter.  She taught me to take care of myself.  She taught me how to survive no matter what.  Those lessons have been well used these last weeks.

A month later I can still hardly believe she's gone.  Sometimes I am able to fool myself into thinking she's still living there in her little house in the mountains...just a phone call away.

Many folks have tried to give me comfort by sharing that she isn't really gone and that one day we'll be together again.  I know they mean well and I appreciate it.  I think it unlikely for a couple of reasons.  First, I'm not convinced that the afterlife they tout even exists.  Second, if I'm wrong and there is an afterlife like they say there is, I most certainly will not be going to the good place.  My Mom was a good Baptist woman.  Her faith was strong and it served her well throughout her life.  Sometimes I wish I had that faith to lean on.

The only thing that can be said to be worse than losing a loved one like my Mom is dealing with the aftermath of her existence.  I spent a week alone in her home packing and sorting and cleaning in an attempt to prepare it for sale.  It was probably the worst week of my life and probably just as well I was on my own.

If you have children and you love them, do everything you can to make this process as easy as possible for them.  My Mom did and I have been frequently surprised by the things she thought of and did for me and my brother before she died.  I can only imagine how much more difficult it would have been had she been as lackadaisical about housework as I am.

I hear that time heals all wounds.  It makes me wonder if I have enough time left to heal the wounds this summer has left on me.

In between the new job and the trip to Colorado and the dealing with banks and Realtors and whatnot, my life has been percolating along.  I have been canning like a woman possessed and basically just trying to keep all my plates spinning.  I've been zapped with the most unholy seasonal allergies this year and yet I still keep going.

The Energizer Bunny has NOTHING on me.

A Clever Title Goes Here

I've been wanting to write something shareable, perhaps even clever, for awhile now.  But, my muse is an elusive, fickle, and cantankerous bitch.  I've not been able to pin her down lately.  Yesterday, I read a blog post that reminded me why I write and why I persist even when my muse has gone walkabout. 

I rarely click the 'publish' button for the things I write on those days. I've been having one of those days for about six months now.  The blog post I read made me wonder if that was a mistake.  Maybe.  Many times the things I write are very personal.  I write these things to get them out of my head so I can sleep or study or just enjoy a movie now and again.  I decided long ago that if I felt those things were too personal, too uninteresting, or just plain too whiny, I wouldn't share them.  This is why:

Where I was raised, your reputation was, and I suspect still is, everything.  You were free to be yourself behind closed doors when nobody was around.  But, in the light of day, you had to conform to the norm.  Wear the right things, say the right things, cast the right votes or risk being ostracized by your community and possibly even your own family.  Try as I might, I've never been especially good at conforming.  Just ask anyone I went to high school with if you can get them to admit they remember me.

I am so tired of trying.

I just want to say what I need to say.  I'm not looking for sympathy, although that's a nice thought.  I'm not really looking for support either because I have that in spades with the vast collection of friends, 'friends', family and co-workers I've collected.  I'm also not looking for validation because, frankly, the very need for validation has gotten me where I am today.  All those things can be offered, but I'm not soliciting them.  Realistically, I don't expect many people to see and actually read this page.

With apologies to my mother, here goes.

My Mom is a gentle and loving woman.  She is funny and brilliant.  She is strong and formidable.  She commands respect and offers the same in return when it has been earned.  She is a survivor.  She is a private person who guards her feelings and opinions carefully.  She has been the cornerstone of my life for all of my life.  We have not always gotten along and that's as it should be, I think. She has taught me every important thing I have ever needed to know whether I listened or not. She is a part of me in a way that I cannot adequately describe with words.

Recently, her health has become fragile and she has had to adjust to a new normal for her.  She requires a lot more help with things than she is accustomed to getting. The adjustment has been a challenge for her but she has met it with grace and dignity even after the doctors told her there was nothing more they could do for her and it is really just a matter of time.  Since the initial shock of it all, I have seen not a trace of fear in her and I think I know why...finally.  And I could kick myself for being so daft.

I think people live their lives not thinking too sharply about how it will end.  They sort of look at it out of the corner of their eye because to stare it down face-to-face is akin to offering temptation...even taunting...for death to bring it on.  The manner in which an individual's life will end is a big mystery even to those who believe they know what comes next.  That seed of doubt is sown in all of us. 

Yes, it is. I mean no disrespect.  But in your darkest hour, you know it's true.

As someone who struggles with a major depressive disorder, I've thought long and hard about how I will die.  At times, I've carefully planned it myself.  For me, the very act of doing that kept me from actually carrying out my plan.  Knowing that I had a plan and that if life simply got to be too much to bear, I had an 'out' made things more bearable for me.  Although having examined death so closely has left me with little fear of my own end, I have no current wish to end my life.  In fact, it's been a long time since I thought about it in detail.  But, my Mom's illness brought it back to the front of my mind.  Not necessarily my own plan.  Her plan.

She knows now.  She knows how her life will end.  The drama and the tension and the not knowing have gone and although there is still some seed of doubt about the details, she has her 'out.'  That simple truth is at once liberating and heart shattering to me.  Really, I don't know why I didn't see it sooner.  I worked with Hospice for several years and I saw the peace on the faces of the clients I served on a daily basis.  They had their 'out.'  Most of them were ready when the time came and many times I was there to hold a hand or witness that final breath and wait for another until it had just been far too long.  It was nerve wracking at times. Their families faced the real struggle.

That struggle has become very personal to me.  I know everyone handles it in their own way and I'm working through it.  At times, I feel a bit fragile myself. 

I guess, in the end, this post is a sort of apology to everyone I know.  I wear my heart on my sleeve most of the time.  I didn't get that super power that some folks have that keeps their emotions in check and firmly tamped down at all times.  To my shame, I am often prone to inappropriate displays of emotion that make the 'normal' people uncomfortable.  So, I do apologize for how I am.  But I will not try to stifle it any longer.  It is a part of me as much as anything else.  My attempts to conform to the norm have left me confused and exhausted.  I'm tired of it so I'm going to stop it now.  I am what I am.  Peer pressure be damned.