Oct. 18: Lots of people have lovingly been asking me how I’ve been doing as we adjust to life without Mom. In general, it’s really not fun. I still worry most about the rest of my family and how they are all coping. And I feel so deflated in the regular moments when I think to myself, “I should call Mom to…” Then I kind of frown and often feel a lump in my throat and then move on.
There’s things I see or hear that so clearly remind me of times we’ve had togehter. I can see her and hear her and remember her so clearly, that it’s painfully startling to re-realize that she’s gone. Now it’s just me holding the memories of the times we have had together. The other side of the “remember when” conversations is gone.
I’ve had so much fun picking out clothes and baby books and little things for this new baby. And Mom would have loved to be part of it. I feel so lucky to have a wonderful mother-in-law and sister to share these fun times with. And since they both knew and loved Mom, it helps me feel more like she’s part of all this too.
All that said, on a daily basis, I don’t spend much time feeling sad. I sometimes worry that I may be avoiding the grieving process altogether, but then I think that a lot of that took place for me over the summer and in some ways over the last couple years. And I know that Mom was really worried about me being too sad or stressed during this pregnancy. Maybe she gave me a mommy spoonful of heart-healing medicine when she left. Because for better or worse, while I miss her so much, I’m not holding a lot of sadness in my heart.
One thing that has been regularly coming to mind is the last weeks of Mom’s life. At the time, we were all in a mode where we were doing what needed to get done. We were providing a lot of care and nursing for Mom, and I was trying really hard to be accepting of the place we were and of the place where we were heading. I’m so glad we had that time to help Mom let go and to say goodbye. But I am currently thinking back on those times and mixing that purposeful sense of gratitude with memories about how wrong, how horrible really, it is to watch your mother die.
I think back, and my heart constricts as I remember seeing sign after sign that her body was failing and that she was irrevocably slipping away from her vibrant living self.
I remember times in July that I just knew that things were really not right, and I so desperately wanted to find a way to fix them. Why didn’t Mom want me to buy her a new, lighter purse. I couldn’t know at the time it was because she was never going to leave the house again on her own.
I think of Mom lying on her hospital bed and seeing the bag that held her urine turn darker and darker as her kidneys shut down. At the time, I tried to just enjoy having her near me and being in her presence. But now I think back on that image, and my soul shouts, “NO!” My mom’s kidneys are NOT supposed to shut down. That means that all the toxins are staying in her body and destroying her brain and meaning that she can never, never come back to us and be herself again.
…
Those last weeks had a whole lot of goodness to them. But this month, as I continue to get used to the idea that Mom the person is gone, I’m also thinking back and working to come to terms with the hard parts of letting her go.
The up-side is that I still feel her all around me all the time.
Those are my thoughts for now.
~Althea