Closure (But Not Yet)

I've wanted to blog about my mom's passing for awhile now.  But even as I sit here nearly three months to the day since she died, reading my last post shared five days before her death, through tears, I realize I'm just not ready.  Not yet.

Closure will have to wait.

The last three months have taught me many things, not the least of which is that grief is not a straight line.  Some days are better than others.  Hell, some hours, some minutes, are better than others.  In some ways, it's getting worse and not better.  It is, frankly, a bitch.  What is it they say, "Life's a bitch and then you die?"  How about, "Life's a bitch and then someone you love dies and it hurts so much you want to effing die yourself but you know you can't because you would totally piss off the person who died and you don't want to run across them in Heaven all mad and stuff?"  Let's try that one on for size and print it on a t-shirt.  It's too big for an emoji.

Loss is also something you can't be prepared for even if you think you are.  Even if you think you've gone down a similar road.  Even if you think you know it all.  Because I do.  Or I thought I did.  My dad died when I was 14, killed in an accident.  I thought that experience might help me.  I was wrong.  We had a very different relationship than I had with my mother.  He was abusive and alcoholic, he wore his flaws on the outside.  My mother had the good judgment to hide her flaws like the rest of us try to do.  He loved me, sure, but I felt relief when he died.  I mourned the relationship we never had and never would have.  With my mother, I have something tangible to mourn, something real.  It's different.

One of the biggest things I mourn is a loss of identity.  I am no longer someone's child, no longer a daughter, no longer a caretaker.  I feel irrelevant, lost.  My mother's illness was the sun I orbited around.  It gave me purpose, structure, a reason for being - especially as I approached my uncertain early 40s where the ground feels unsteady, my footing unsure.  It created a routine I leaned on when nothing else seemed to make sense.  I felt helpful, important, needed.

Every morning for years, as I sat down at my desk, the first thing I did was call my mother, allegedly to check in with a newsy hello but we both knew it was to make sure she was still alive, that she had survived the night.  On the days she didn't answer, I became frantic and upset, imagining the worst case scenario, calling relatives sometimes, other times stewing in worried silence.  Eventually, she would call, repentant, apologizing for making me worry.  She had been sleeping, in the bathroom, away from the phone.  All was forgiven.  She was here.

But now she's not.

Getting up in the morning, never particularly easy, has become almost impossible.  My morning routine is broken and my nights are sleepless and restless, filled with dreams when sleep actually comes.  So I fight my way out of bed, many days too late, making me late for work or dressed in a hurry, but I take pride in the fact that I get up.

Little victories.

I went to a bereavement group, confident it would help.  I was the one with the freshest loss in the group.  I win!  Sad Club MVP.  Everyone else had a few years under their belts.  They said things like, "I will never be happy again." or "I will never feel pure joy."  Those not talking all nodded their heads in assent.  They believed it.  I could not.  I have already felt pure joy in the three months since my mom passed.  I have felt the warm glow of good times, and the love of friends and family.  I will be happy again.  I cannot allow myself to believe otherwise.  My mother would not allow it.  I want to graduate out of this state at some point and return to life.  I don't want to be "that person."  I cannot let loss become my identity.  In the natural order of things, we should lose our parents in our lifetimes.  It's not easy but it is.  It just simply is.  I have to learn a new normal.

A new normal where the world does not revolve around me.  I mean, who cares about all of my stupid stuff now?  Your mother is legally required (don't fact check it, just trust me) to care about the most ridiculous things related to you, her child.   Sure, spouses and friends and other family can pretend to care about the bigger things, and maybe they even actually do care, but your mom cares about life's hangnails - actual hangnails and the metaphorical ones - and the little victories, not just the small ones.  You got out of bed today, treasure, good for you!  You have a hangnail, I'm so sorry, honey, have some tea.  Moms cover up just how cold the world can be.

I left the group and decided, instead of looking inward, I'll keep as busy as humanly possible.  I fill my schedule with trips and work and anything I can think of.  I feel like Forrest Gump - run Forrest run.  Whenever I stop, it isn't pretty.  That is when the emotions come.  And this is maybe why I cannot sleep; when I finally lay to rest, everything wells up and you can only shut it out for so long.  I try to shut it out with work and sugar and cheese and bread and the occasional glass of wine.  And then I remember that this behavior will not change the fact that I am an orphan, it will just make me stressed AND fat AND an orphan AND in need of new clothes I can't afford to fit my bigger orphan body.  Let's stick with the original problem, shall we?  I already have 99.

This loss has also taught me that I know nothing about compassion.  I thought I was a compassionate person, but I really wasn't.  All of a sudden I am a member of a club I never wanted to be a part of, and it totally sucks, and I apologize to anyone I have ever said well-meaning words of comfort to.  I didn't know what you were going through.  I wasn't sure it would be ok.  I don't know if he/she/it was better off or in a better place and it doesn't matter.  I have no business saying he/she lived a rich, full life.  What I should have said was, "I'm sorry.  I'm thinking of you," and did something, anything that I thought would help instead of thinking, "Let me know if there's anything I can do" would cover it.  Now I know that when you're going through a loss, you have no idea what you want or need, but you just need people, you need them to do something, to be there.  I'll try to do better.

So I sit here at my computer, more than a little bit heartbroken, puffy eyed, tired, and 10 lbs heavier than when I last wrote to you, dear readers, sharing that I want to share more, but I just can't yet.  I hope you forgive me because I'm not sure I forgive myself.  But I'll get there.  And if I write about my hangnails know that it's because I need to, and I need to hear reassurance that, like everything else, they'll heal and it'll be alright.

Now THAT's a t-shirt I would wear.