Losing Mom: A Journey Through Grief (Part 2)

 September 3, 2020:  Almost three whole weeks.

Yesterday I got out my stack of holiday cards to try and find your handwriting.  It was quite a stack if I'm being honest.  Most people, though we may not admit it, probably just throw theirs away.  I know a couple years ago I went through my own hoard of things, which explains why yesterday I only had two cards with your handwriting inside: one from you, Jeremy and Heather, the other one you signed for grandma.  You did that all the time, sign cards for her; I wonder who will do that small task now that you're gone?  I'll just add that question to my ever-growing list.  

It stung though, realizing I really only kept one card of yours.  One piece of evidence that expressed your love for me.  I know I don't need the proof, but back when I cleaned everything out I thought I would have you longer.  Much much much longer.  I still think that I will, if I'm being honest, which I'm trying to be for myself and whoever else may need it.  Your being gone still makes no sense to me...

I cried tears of anger and sadness at the realization that I had tossed out all your physical copies of love.  Your chicken-scratch handwriting and slightly-better cursive is somewhere in a landfill or something.  In the grand scheme of things lost to mankind, those cards are of least importance.  Losing you has been something inexplicable.  But again, now with you gone, I yearn for such things.  I want everything that you've ever given me - big or small, expensive or free, silly or meaningful - all of it.  I want physical things too - to hear your voice, give you a hug, see your smiling face, tell you that I love you and hear you say it back.  The last time I said it you couldn't say it back...

I told a friend recently that if I were to live as long as grandma has, I will live 71 years without you.  I always thought it must be hard for grandma, since her parents both died in the 80s, to have lived nearly 40 years without them.  But to live 71?  I can't fathom it.  I can't fathom another day, which will only add up to 3 weeks.  I can't fathom a year, or 5, or 10.  In 22 short years I will have lived as much of my life without you as I have with you, and I will only be 44.

Today I watered the grass on your grave.  It's growing pretty well, which really has nothing to do with me and more to do with the fact that it's seed.  But I did end up pulling the last flower off your spray that covered your casket.  It's a very bittersweet thing; I didn't even want to need a spray, and now I'm sad that it's just leaves.  It's just a blatant reminder that time is ticking on and I am not waking up from this dream.  Because this isn't a dream.  This is just life now.  It's a horrible, gray limbo of a reality right now.  It probably will be for a while.  I would do anything - anything - to just see "Mom" pop up on my phone again.  Just to see you again.  Just to have you back.

I know this is an impossible ask, so I won't even ask it.  I'll just type it here, but internally I'm shouting into the void, over the canyons, into the clouds to reach God so he hears me clearly: please take this hurt away.  Or at least help me unravel it all so it makes sense.  But if the cost of either of those things is to stop missing her, then never mind.  I would rather keep the hurt; the daily reminder that she mattered, that she was loved, that she was the most important person in my little piece of the world, and now she's gone.  

I feel like I'm missing, even though I'm still here, existing in my own body and my own house, in the same way I had been when she was with me.  But everything's different now.  Nothing is the same.  I'm not the same.  I'm missing, or at least a very large part of me is, and if you took it with you mom, because you thought maybe you would miss us too much in heaven, then that's okay.  I respect that.  I wear your fingerprint over my heart every day, so I guess I also took a piece of you.  I wish we didn't have to do that.  I'll never understand why we have.

This is hard.  Very hard.  Some days are harder than others, and today is definitely up there.  I know some will come that will surpass this one though too, so there's that...  That's all the positivity I can muster today, and it's completely negative.  And that's okay.  We don't have to feel good all the time, and we shouldn't pretend like we do for the benefit of others, because that only weakens ourselves.  Our vast array of emotions, and expressing them when they come, is what makes a strong person.  I'll try to remember that as I forge on through this dark and foggy path.  Who knows, there may be brighter days ahead...