More on Grieving, Sorry (L)

Sorry to not be able to just continue on the path that Marty has so kindly began for us. I am still to tied up in my own process, need to vent, and this is where I'm gonna do it! I also don't want to lose our flow of writing that we've developed here, just because I think no one wants to read what I'm thinking.

Following Alessandra and my's theory of the death experience being oddly like the birth, on the weekend that was two weeks post my mother's death, I felt a new similarity.

I remember when I was pregnant with my second child my pediatrician telling me to expect that after a couple of weeks my oldest would begin to ask things like "When's the baby going back to the hospital?" He warned me, at first, the older child is distracted by all the newness and excitement of a baby in the house, but after a couple of weeks reality sinks in and they've had enough and want things back to normal.

That's what I felt like during that second week: "Yes, I know my mother has died, I understand that, but when is she coming back? When will she call me?" With that sensation, depression began to set in and I wondered how I could be moving into the depression phase of grieving while still firmly in denial. On Sunday night, exactly two weeks after her passing, alone on my couch, that veil of denial was lifted, just a small corner. The wind of the reality of her loss blew in like a hurricane and cracked me apart. I literally could not believe that I would never talk to her again, never hear her voice in person, on the phone, even on an answering machine. This thought, this attempt at understanding that reality was like trying to comprehend eternity. It altered the air around me, my attempts at breathing through the wet onslaught of this gust were almost futile. When Chris came home and found me in this state, a thought bubble seemed to hover above his head as he held me trying to calm me down, "Aren't we done with this part?"

The next day, people tried to say things, kind, reassuring things. This phase of grieving needs to be silent, beyond the howling of the wind. Words cannot change reality and reality was trying to edge it's way in. Blah, blah, blah. She can't come back, I won't see her again, hear her again. No one more conversation would ever be enough, and I'd never have that one last conversation. She slipped out, as we pushed her before I could. Blah blah blah. There's nothing to be said.

The next weekend, which marked three weeks, stupidly, I let the kids all spend the night at Chris' mother's house, so we could finish shopping. Who knew they were the cork stopper in my sorrow and when they drove away in the Sears' parking lot, the bottle was upside down, flowing out it's endless depths. I walked through Shaw's crying, finally calling my sister on the phone. Chris, still angry from an earlier fight, slammed a car door on my tears and oh, how alone and sorry for myself I felt. Then I discovered what I had always known, but forgotten, when I feel so deeply sad and selfishly sorry for myself I only want to talk to my mother--creating a new cycle/cyclone of sorrow. This had never changed or eroded. My mother remained my mother and herself, complete in her mind, right up to the day before she slipped into sepsis unconscious. I still needed her, her words and voice still soothed me. I yearn for it. I don't yearn for her to be back crippled in pain and suffering trapped in a bed. But selfishly, I yearn for the sound of her voice, for days of the past when she would ride with me to keep me company.

Yesterday, I had to go to a doctor in Waterville (just a P. Surgeon who gives my scars steroid shots to make them flat). My mother always went with me for these appointments, she even taught me the back roads to get there. Like a coward, I grabbed my son and dragged him along with me to stave off the sorrow. I was repaid that evening when I opted to see the movie Benjamin Button . More on that later. Every day is better, though sometimes I wonder if every day I wall up more, or I am just placing another day between me and what I don't want to think about. I still haven't sat with the reality of it since that two week storm. Somehow, getting past Christmas has made me feel as though I have some odd permission now to just not think about it. I know it will come, it will all unravel itself slowly slowly over time and I'll just try to keep at least one hand on the string.


I posted this picture on Facebook. It's at C's mother's house on Christmas Eve. I had held firm until my father began to sing "Silent Night" and I realized I hadn't heard him sing a Christmas carol since my mother was standing next to me as we caroled, which we had done every year until she couldn't. In complete despair and surprise of crying in front of people, while not wanting to leave the sound of my father's voice, I turned my face into G's shoulder and cried as she joined me. C, unknowing of what was happening took this picture. When I saw it, I felt there is a presence of my mother in the room. Maybe that was why I couldn't leave.