Losing Mom: A Journey Through Grief (Part 8)

 May 14, 2021:  9 Months

April 27, 2021

I don't really like going to the cemetery, if I'm honest.  The rough patch of ground in front of your headstone just reminds me why it was dug up in the first place.  Then I can't stop my mind from reminding me that you were buried.  Then I simply do everything I can to not throw up.  It's even worse the times that I see you - your face, closed eyes, cold hands crossed, that blue floral dress, your hair curly - peaceful.  I remember you looking peaceful.  The memory does nothing to combat the nausea though.  In fact, it feels suffocating.  Probably because some small part of my brain ignorantly convinces me that you're suffocating.  Grief is a lot.  It's so much.  It's high anxiety and high sadness and high joy when it comes and around and around it seems to go.  But everything is so much, that even in your death I think you're suffering.  

Sometimes, if I'm honest, which I try my best to be when I write these updates, I want to get down on my hands and knees and dig all the way down to you.  I don't want to open anything though, not even the big cement vault (which, let's be honest, I probably couldn't do anyway).  My heart couldn't take all that I'm certain, it can barely stand the last visions of you that I have.  But I don't know, I think it's my undying yearning to be close to you.

I know that digging up your grave wouldn't make that possible, nothing will.  And aside from that, I couldn't bear the thought of disturbing your newfound, and very well-deserved, peace.  Even at the expense of my own...  Though again, let me be honest, I don't think this would help in the slightest.  I wish I knew how to find peace in all of this.  I'm sure you're trying to lead me directly to it, and you're just out of my line of sight rolling your eyes because I'm too stubborn to do a 180.  I'll get there eventually Momma.  Though I wish I didn't have to.

April 29, 20201

I was listening to Taylor Swift's "Evermore" CD in my car, and it had ended, so I turned my radio back on.  When I got into my car this morning to go to work, I turned the CD back on, and it showed track 1.  Then suddenly, track 13 started playing.  It's a song called "Marjorie."  It didn't even play from the beginning, it started on a line that goes: "what died didn't stay dead, what died didn't stay dead, you're alive, you're alive in my head."  I believe wholeheartedly that was mom's way of saying she's still with me. 

You see, this morning I wrote on a grief page about how my missing person is my mom, who knows me far better than anyone, but she's gone now.  And how I have a birthday coming up that I don't want to celebrate.  She must have seen that I said she was gone, and demanded that I know she indeed is not.

I have to admit though, I have some fears about sharing this particular story.  I know to some it will probably sound like complete fallacy, but I promise you it is not.  I believe in Heaven.  And I believe that those that pass are still near us and with us every day, just not in the physical way we hope.  I'm even more aware of that now after this experience.

May 14, 2021

Today it’s been 9 months without you… With each passing day I find that increasingly difficult to believe. I swear I just saw you yesterday. That bright pink shirt you were wearing is glued to the back of my eyes. I remember washing off all of those groceries you just bought. I remember the topic of our conversation. I remember I had cheer practice to go to after I was done helping you. 

The next day, Thursday, you didn’t feel good. You didn’t come home. You stayed at grandma’s all day and napped on her couch. 

Friday morning at around 1:00 a.m. you tried to call me. I didn’t answer. I still have that voicemail, though I haven’t been able to bring myself to listen to it since that fateful day…

Nine months later, and I still stand at your grave like it’s a strangers. I don’t feel much of anything most of the time, as much as it pains me to admit it. But I simply just don’t believe that you’re gone. My mother. How can my mother be gone? I’m just a child, I need my mother, she can’t be gone. When is she coming back? 

I find myself wishing you just took a really long vacation by yourself, and you’ll be home tomorrow. But tomorrow’s always come, and you still don’t. And you won’t. Similarly, with each passing day, that fact gets a little easier to swallow. The taste is still bitter though. Something I had thrown up at the beginning, but muscle through now.

My grief will never ebb, I’m sure. No, I know for sure. I love you too tremendously to ever stop missing you so much. But sometimes it is bearable. I hold tightly to those days. 

I miss you forever and ever and ever. I wish you were here this week, it was definitely one where I wish I could have called you on my break, and your voice alone would’ve soothed me. I called you in my mind, but your voice never comes. I hate that I can’t hear it at will…

I love you forever, my sweet angel. You were always one on earth, and now you’re flying on your wings. You’re my star all through the year, Momma. 

<3 Sarah