It is very important for me to say that I do not live life feeling like a victim of any sort. I am a happy woman with blessings beyond measure. But... But a huge part of what life is "supposed" to include is missing. My mom is gone. She had just turned 40 years old. 40 years young and she was gone. No sickness, no warning, just...gone.
No one at any age is equipped to process such a sudden loss, let alone 12 and 15 year old girls of their mother. I don't think children are supposed to know, so intimately, that the security they take for granted is as fragile as a bubble. There one minute, all pretty and full and right, then, POP, and it's gone. Loss like that changes things. It changes the way you view life and how you manage it. Because of the sudden nature of Mama's death, I have a deep need to know what is happening, when it's happening, what the chances are that it will or won't happen, and how it may or may not change. Many times, I have out of proportion negative feelings in reaction to any change. It sends me reeling and feeling that I have no control. But, thanks to my mom's influence up to the point she died, my dad's amazing ability to carry us through our new reality, and God's amazing grace, I did come out of the clouds a tiny bit damaged, sure, but intact and able to have a healthy perspective on things in general and am able to keep the aforementioned need for control in check and out of sight from others, for the most part.
My scars do burn from time to time, but I'm alright. I'm better than alright, actually. I'm great. What happened could so easily have caused me to go down a different, darker path and I don't know that anyone would have blamed me, really. It happens all the time with excuses less damaging than a dead mother, but darkness and irreversible bad decisions weren't an option for me, again, thanks to my amazing parents and a grit in my gut that maybe I was born with. You know that saying, "pick yourself up by the bootstraps and carry on."? Every time I hear it, I picture my little girl self staring at a pair of boots way too big for my feet and legs to carry, but put them on and pull them up I did, no matter that they were much too big a burden to bear, and I never stopped carrying on. Walking in the love my mom sewed in me while she was on Earth and by the light of the torch my dad carried to lead us through.
My scars do burn from time to time, but I'm alright. I'm better than alright, actually. I'm great. What happened could so easily have caused me to go down a different, darker path and I don't know that anyone would have blamed me, really. It happens all the time with excuses less damaging than a dead mother, but darkness and irreversible bad decisions weren't an option for me, again, thanks to my amazing parents and a grit in my gut that maybe I was born with. You know that saying, "pick yourself up by the bootstraps and carry on."? Every time I hear it, I picture my little girl self staring at a pair of boots way too big for my feet and legs to carry, but put them on and pull them up I did, no matter that they were much too big a burden to bear, and I never stopped carrying on. Walking in the love my mom sewed in me while she was on Earth and by the light of the torch my dad carried to lead us through.
But being great and carrying on doesn't mean that I don't ache sometimes so deep down inside in ways that defy words or the ability to explain to anyone who doesn't truly understand. I envy those people sometimes. The ones without a single lick on their timeline. The ones who don't REALLY know that things can happen to them. They can't help it. Their bubble just hasn't burst and I hope it doesn't. I really do.
Part of me would give anything to still live in my bubble, but another part of me is glad that I have been tested and learned that I can take a punch. It's a good thing to know about yourself, actually. Now, don't get me wrong, I am not looking to get knocked down again. In fact, I tend to have trouble keeping my head above fog of fear that something will happen to someone I love, or God forbid, my boys. It is a fear that I fight to keep at bay on a daily basis. The fear of the rug being pulled out from under me. But I have been tested and I know that I was strong enough to endure at least that test. And I believe I am a better, more compassionate wife, friend, mother, and person in general for having walked through a fire and come out alive.
Most days, my mom is in my heart and the reality of her being gone is just part of me and not in a negative, woe is me way. It's just how it is. I know she's gone, but she's watching and she is proud.
But some days, like today, I feel so sad and so incomplete. On days like today, I don't find as much comfort as maybe I should that I will see her again one day. I want to see her now, alive, with me. On days like today, I allow myself to just feel it, to let it seep in. I endure it and I allow it because I have to. I spent many years afraid of it and never allowing myself to truly feel it. I pushed it down deep and I paid for that in the many ways it found to manifest itself.
Now, I let it come because I know that I have to feel it all or it won't truly pass. I have to let myself remember that I was alone with her when she had the stroke, and what she said and how she said it while it was happening. I see what I now know was fear in her eyes as it all unfolded and as she realized it. And all the while, I was clueless, and helpless, and so, so scared. In my mind, I let myself see my broken and stubborn sister yell at the doctor as he tells us she won't survive. I watch my dad become human right before my very eyes as he falls to his knees, realizing that his beloved wife is gone and that his girls are losing their mother. I feel the crick in my neck from so many hugs from people I barely know and think to myself how unhelpful they all are, though they want so badly to help. I smell lilies in the funeral home, a smell which makes me nauseous to this day. I feel worried eyes on me and whispers wondering if I am ok. If I am going to be ok. And I feel my little girl self retreat, for the first of so many times, into a place in my mind where I couldn't be reached. Untouchable. I have to acknowledge that, even as vividly as I remember some of those early, awful days, there are chunks of time missing here and there starting then and right through to my early twenties. I had checked out. Untouchable.
I remember that I don't remember a lot of things about Mama that I wish I could, but I remember her laugh and I remember her love. I found a card from her not long ago which was a simple "do you forgive me?" from her to me. What happened to cause her to give me this card? I have no idea. It's easy when someone dies to forget that they were human and imperfect like the rest of us. I'm sure it was that she lost her temper or didn't handle something the way she thought she should have with me. Things we all do regularly. It gave me hope that one day my boys will look back and just remember my love.
On days like today, though, I let myself feel the fear that I will leave my children too soon, just like she did, and I feel like I might break at the thought of it. I think about how strange it feels to be so close to the age she was when she died and wonder what it will feel like when I pass it.
Now, I let it come because I know that I have to feel it all or it won't truly pass. I have to let myself remember that I was alone with her when she had the stroke, and what she said and how she said it while it was happening. I see what I now know was fear in her eyes as it all unfolded and as she realized it. And all the while, I was clueless, and helpless, and so, so scared. In my mind, I let myself see my broken and stubborn sister yell at the doctor as he tells us she won't survive. I watch my dad become human right before my very eyes as he falls to his knees, realizing that his beloved wife is gone and that his girls are losing their mother. I feel the crick in my neck from so many hugs from people I barely know and think to myself how unhelpful they all are, though they want so badly to help. I smell lilies in the funeral home, a smell which makes me nauseous to this day. I feel worried eyes on me and whispers wondering if I am ok. If I am going to be ok. And I feel my little girl self retreat, for the first of so many times, into a place in my mind where I couldn't be reached. Untouchable. I have to acknowledge that, even as vividly as I remember some of those early, awful days, there are chunks of time missing here and there starting then and right through to my early twenties. I had checked out. Untouchable.
I remember that I don't remember a lot of things about Mama that I wish I could, but I remember her laugh and I remember her love. I found a card from her not long ago which was a simple "do you forgive me?" from her to me. What happened to cause her to give me this card? I have no idea. It's easy when someone dies to forget that they were human and imperfect like the rest of us. I'm sure it was that she lost her temper or didn't handle something the way she thought she should have with me. Things we all do regularly. It gave me hope that one day my boys will look back and just remember my love.
On days like today, though, I let myself feel the fear that I will leave my children too soon, just like she did, and I feel like I might break at the thought of it. I think about how strange it feels to be so close to the age she was when she died and wonder what it will feel like when I pass it.
On days like today, I let myself mourn what I didn't have as a budding teenager, a growing young adult, a new bride, or a new mother. Those things were tough to navigate without her, but now, I mourn her absence in a different way. I mourn that she will never meet my John, my Jake, or my Hamp here on Earth. She will never have a "grandmother name" and they will never know her no matter how much I try to tell them about her. They'll never know her. No matter how many people I have in my life to love and support me, I still have a distinct feeling of being alone, as it isn't natural to go through life as a young person without a mom. I will never hear her say she's proud of the mother I am. I will never fuss with her about a difference we would have had. She will never tell me things about myself as a child that might help me worry less about how my own children are as they go through the same phases. I'll never ask her to keep my boys for the afternoon, the night, or the weekend. She'll never get to smell their little boy smell and run with them and show them all the fun things she did with her PE students. She'll never give me insight into myself that only a mother can and I will never have an adult's insight into her. She'll never tell me about her childhood or her struggles as a woman, wife, and mom. She'll never be on the other end of the phone. I imagine that there is a familiarity with a mom that a woman might have as an adult. A comfort. Some natural, innate rhythm that makes things you do for each other and with each other a given, and not a favor or something to be planned and thought about.
She will never step on my toes and I will never get to hug her and say thank you. Thank you for loving me so much that, even all these years later, I can feel that love and know how deep and real it was. And thank you for unwillingly making me learn that knowing sadness so intimately would allow me to recognize and experience true happiness and never, ever take it for granted.
She will never step on my toes and I will never get to hug her and say thank you. Thank you for loving me so much that, even all these years later, I can feel that love and know how deep and real it was. And thank you for unwillingly making me learn that knowing sadness so intimately would allow me to recognize and experience true happiness and never, ever take it for granted.
On days like today, my heart hurts. It physically hurts and my feelings are so complicated and raw. Like I said, though, there was a time when I didn't acknowledge the grief when it busted through my heart like a ton of bricks out of the blue. I thought it was weak to feel it, so I convinced myself I didn't. But I have learned over time that when the tide comes in, I just have to let it wash over me. I have to lie down and take it like sand on the beach because I know that it will be gone just as fast as it came.
