Griefaries: Three

 April 8, 2022

It's been a week for me - both physically and emotionally.  

Last weekend I battled a 2-day bout with the stomach bug.  That ill-weekend had me missing taking my anti-depressants too.  Not only did I initially forget about them, but then I also wondered whether or not I should take them on an empty stomach, similar to tylenol.  Then it sort of just spiraled, if I'm honest.  I began to notice no difference at all in my mental health, so I started believing that the medicine wasn't working (as I have often thought, if I'm honest).  But then I started feeling better, and I finally returned back to work, and I was just sad.  Not to be there with the children or my lovely coworkers, not even for any reason in particular, I just was.  Because my body on its own does not produce enough of that happy stuff, whatever my doctor called it.  So it turns out that my medicine has been working, go figure.  I have resumed taking it again, though at this point I think I'm still getting used to it again.

During those few days of no medicine, and even every day on it, my mind just kept racing with thoughts.  All of them mom-related, of course.  No matter how much time passes, I just can't make it make sense.  In fact, I think the more time that passes just makes it that much harder for me to grasp.  Every fact or physical piece of evidence seems to be turning to smoke right before my very eyes, and that is not something I can cling to for dear life.  Smoke will just escape through the cracks between my fingers, and I will have nothing to hold that can make this make sense.  Though I'm not sure that adding sense to the grief will give it any clarity anyway.

I know I always say this - but I really can't believe my mom is dead.  Furthermore, I really can't believe how long it's been.  It truly just happened.  I was just woken up in the early morning on a Friday, driven to the hospital my mom was heading to via ambulance, walked inside as a family during covid (which should've been a sign), and given no such sign of impending death beyond the doors from the social worker walking us in.  It was just yesterday that I figured out on my own that the machines were quiet, nothing was alive and humming, which meant my mother was not either.  I did that.  Imagine having to do that.  Then imagine living with that.  You try to make that make sense.

I think it's even harder for me to believe that she's gone because I simply don't want to.  I don't want her to be gone.  I often have dreams that she comes back from somewhere she's always wanted to go, like New York, and she walks in with a beaming yet confused smile on her face, wondering why her house has been changed and where her car went.  And I wouldn't even be mad at her.  I wouldn't ask her a single question for understanding, I would simply accept that she was still alive and well.  Sometimes I even imagine that she is alive and well, somewhere out there in the world, she was just a little overwhelmed by all that life had been demanding of her.  I couldn't even be mad at her for that either.  Even as an adult child of my mother's, I know I did not lend any assistance to easing her difficulties.  Though she would surely tell me it was not my responsibility to do such a thing anyway.

I have literally no idea where I'm going with this.  I've just been sad this week.  It has been hard for me to want to do much of anything, if I'm honest.  But every day I got up for work and I did the living thing and I kept playing my role in society.  Some days it is easier for me to do those mundane tasks.  Some days I even find pure joy in doing them.  This week has just been a harder one for me.  I was sick, and my mind was sick, and even on medicine my mind still is.  We can't always be our best.  We can't always be happy.  I can't just smile everyday because my mother would want me to be happy.  That's not how life works, or grief.  I think my mother would want me to be sad, if that's what I was.  She would want me to be honest about my emotions, rather than hide them away.

Again, I still don't really know where I'm going with this.  I guess this is a long and jumbled way for me to say feel your feelings.  It is mental health awareness month, after all, so what better time to advocate for that.  Be honest with yourself, seek help when you need it, take medicine, talk to a therapist or a friend, draw or write or paint or scream.  Do whatever it is that feels like taking care of yourself.  Tell your story, and find solace in those that may understand it.

The Miss, I miss you terribly.  I'm not sure why this is the hand you were dealt, but you played it admirably.  There was a lesson I learned in every season of our short time together.  I wish I was as lucky as you were to have 52 years with your beautiful mother.  I will always feel robbed, because I was.  The whole world was.  It shifted slightly off its axis the day you entered heaven, and no longer had a physical hold on the worlds best traits.  Maybe that's why nothing has felt right since you died.  Or maybe it's much simpler than that.  Maybe it's just because you're my mother - the woman I was lucky enough to be apart of - and now you're gone.  All the pieces of me that were pieces of you died the day you did.  I know my heart and soul changed that very day.  I felt it.  I remember it so.  I miss that girl, whoever she was, but I miss you far more.  

I love you always and forever, and for an eternity after that.  You are my star.  I will keep looking for you in all the beautiful places, and in all the light.  You still shine so brightly, momma.