Big, fat snowflakes were gently falling when I awoke one morning earlier this week. I’ve been sick for what feels like an eternity, but what has actually been merely a couple weeks. I haven’t been this sick since I was a child, and I longed for my mother’s comforting touch.
Something’s been off lately, and it goes beyond the exhaustion of being ill. This sense of the world not being right has its roots in my soul, and it’s left me feeling off balance. After the kids left for school, I sat at the kitchen table and stared out at the glistening blanket of snow that was quickly forming. It was a Christmas Eve-type snowfall, the kind that muffles the sounds of the world outside. And as I waited for my coffee to brew, it slowly dawned on me that I’ve been so focused on the everyday details of life that somewhere between here and Nov. 3 when I got the news of Mom’s death, I lost sight of the big picture. I lost my sanctuary.
Maybe grief demands that of its survivors. In order to get through each day without falling apart over and over again, we take baby steps. And for me, anyway, that means paying attention to the matter at hand. Pack lunches; get kids to school; take a shower; eat breakfast; throw in a load of laundry; get kids from school; get them to gymnastics, guitar lessons, martial arts instruction; pick up milk; go to the bank…
This isn’t living in the moment. It’s living to get past the moment to keep busy to get everything done to get the chance to go back to bed and not have to think any more about how my life is changed because my mom is dead and oh, how I hate those words. As a writer, I would liken this feeling to a paragraph without punctuation. Days run together, and before I know it, entire months have gone by and I feel I’ve not actually lived them.
To those on the outside looking in, everything appears as it ought. But from where I stand, everything seems slightly off center, as if at any moment, it might all come crashing down. I’m not a wreck; I’m not depressed any more than one might expect I would be at this stage of my sadness. I’m just tired of feeling like I need to get through every moment. I’d like to find my optimistic self again; I know she’s somewhere among these ruins.
I had to clean out my e-mails so that I could give my old work computer to the boys. Because I don’t maintain my inbox like I should, there were over 5,000 e-mails I had to sift through to determine if I needed to keep them. I simply cannot express how difficult it was to hit that delete key and erase forever the e-mails my mom sent. Over and over and over. It felt like a betrayal. And when I shared this with my sister, she said something that struck me as profoundly true: You get just one chance to win a person, but you can lose her over and over again.
And that’s it. Every single day for the last three months, I’ve lost another tiny piece of Mom, and with those, a piece of myself as well. I have memories and photos, and of course, I carry her in my heart. I talk to her, too, all the time. But anyone who’s ever had a loved one die knows that life is irrevocably altered when that person draws her last breath. What once was, is no more. And I don’t care how strong you are or what your faith is, it’s a loss that wreaks havoc with your heart.
Going through life knowing there’s someone who loves you unconditionally gives you a cushion for when you fall short of your own expectations and disappoint yourself. It makes every moment of happiness more joyful; every achievement more glorious. And when that person is physically gone from your life, it leaves a void that no substance, no faith, no distraction can overcome. It isn’t a matter of spirituality or religion, of believing that person is in a better place, or that everything happens for a reason. It’s just grief, pure and simple. It demands acknowledgement and has its own timetable.
And because I’ve survived the death of a child as well, I already know this terrain. I know how it rips at your soul, how it has you laughing at memories one moment, choking on sobs the next. It is relentless, this grief. Unpredictable. Unkind.
But I know that sunnier days lie in wait; I’ve seen them, briefly, here and there. I will eventually return to the place where I no longer try to simply survive each day, but actually find sanctuary in the quiet moments that I once cherished. It will not be the same; I am not the same. I once gave Mom a card that read, “My home is in my mother’s eyes.” And that’s what it comes down to: I miss my home.