Grief Becomes Her
My mother’s death changes everything
My mom passed away several days ago. I haven’t written about it until now, in part, because I wasn’t entirely sure what I want to say. Also, it has a kind of crystalline life of its own, this loss, and I’m not sure how to capture it or what to say about it. It is an everyday occurrence in the world, but for me, it is intensely personal and utterly beyond what words can express. Although there are times where I’m actually doing pretty well under the circumstances, at other times the sheer chaos of grief overwhelms me. This is who I am now, a motherless child.
My mother was 89 and she’d lived a pretty good and happy life. She was ready to no longer be in a body that couldn’t keep up with the rest of her, and she very much wanted to be free of it. One friend commented that heaven had a new angel and that she was no doubt up their organizing something — a luau, a craft show, or maybe a class of some kind. I’m not sure I believe in a literal heaven, but it made me smile none-the-less.
Mom was ready to go, and I was mostly ready to let her go… mostly, but there is no way to fill the void left by someone who has always been in your life from earliest memory; someone who has loved you with her whole being all of your days. You can’t get over that; you just have to learn to adjust, and that is something that…
