Next Friday it will be three years since I lost my Mom.
By some coincidence of the universe (or not) I’m actually going to be back at Dad’s next week, staying in the room where she took her last breath (and I think to myself suddenly–PLEASE let this NOT be the visit where they’ve decided to change the curtains in there!). My Gramma is in failing health and I feel like I need to get there to see her. We were supposed to go this week, but the girls and I all got a really mean virus and we had to postpone. Thus meaning that we’ll be there for “The Day.” For a large part of “The Week.”
I’m planning on doing my usual that day: Getting some roses and milkshakes and taking them to a cancer center for the folks getting infusions. It’s just that, this time, it will be Mom’s infusion center.
So all of that feels significant, but what really feels odd is the fact that I want to be so detached from it all this year. I don’t know if that is good or bad. I don’t know if it is healing or denial. I am leaning closer to denial, though I know that in some ways it’s healthy not to dwell on these things.
With the circumstances, I almost feel like it’s survival to not “go there” too much. To be IN the house with Dad and his new wife, to be back to see the scorchy grass of July in Illinois, to feel the heat, and to hear the Cicadas singing like I did that year, and that week.
I keep thinking about it and retreating. The last two years I obsessively went over again and again every little moment that I could remember. I catalogued and re-catalogued every instant. I refelt every feeling.
This year, I can’t. I don’t want to. It hurts too badly and I can’t afford to hurt that badly. It feels like avoidance and survival. But I don’t know if it’s healthy or harmful for me.
Regardless, I’ll do the best I can. I trust that God will lead me into the feelings I need to feel and support me in them. And I trust that the week will be what it is. About Mom, and about the life that is in front of me now.
It just feels really weird this year.
Hi Val, I found your blog entries while surfing around, looking at something entirely unrelated.
Though I am a lot older than you, I can really relate to your Mom-longing on many levels. It’s been a little over 3 years for me, too.
I think about my Mom constantly, and it’s still a SHOCK to me that she got (pancreatic) cancer. I can’t even believe it happened. It hit my Mom really hard, as it was misdiagnosed for so long, and pain brought her to the ER/hospital, where they belatedly figured it out.
It turns my stomach when I think of those days. I still cannot even listen to music, as hospice (like you, they were only there about a week) told my sister-in-law to play Mom’s favorite music. I don’t even know if she knew it was playing. It was very surreal – the rich-voiced Dianna Krall, and Mom lying there semi-comatose.
Very surprised to find your site – and to know that someone else is dealing with Momloss in such a big way, after 3 years.
I have felt really alone in my extended grief. People simply don’t want to hear or know about it anymore. As I’m older and my Mom was older, it’s presumed that “it’s the natural order of life”…but that knowledge surely doesn’t make it easier! My Mom was very active, and she had lots of living left to do. She had purchased a lot of bathing suits on sale – some for me, some for her. We were going to use them that summer – at the pool, at the beach. She was interested in the political scene, too – like your Mom. My parents worked at the polls for several years.
Sounds like you are a really good Mom – your Mom would have liked that. I’m sure you are taking the good ways that she had with you, and transferring them to your girls.
I have saved this site to “favorites.” Hope you keep posting. Take care, Val.