Losing Mom: A Journey Through Grief (Part 16)

Today marks 3 years since you died.  This day comes faster and faster with every year that passes.  I suppose part of me is grateful that I don’t sit glumly in the darkness that this day represents.  I suppose it also means I’m just another moment closer to seeing you again.

However, the other part of me hates that this day comes so quietly after all this time.  I have been incredibly aware of this impending date since your birthday, then since the first of the month, and with writing dates that were necessary at work.  But feelings surrounding this day have been very quiet.  And the realization of that makes me quite sad. 

I can’t help but feel some semblance of guilt about such a thing.  It strikes me as non-caring, non-loving, as if I have completely made it out of the vice grips of this grief.  I absolutely haven’t, but the longer I have spent in here, the more I understand it’s shiftiness.

My grief specifically is not always felt the most on anniversaries, birthdays, holidays, etc. Sometimes they’re on February 4th, late at night, and I am kept awake with memories of you.  Other times it crashes into me on October 17th, during the evening drive home from work.  Perhaps one of Fall Out Boys songs from American Beauty / American Psycho plays in the car, and it reminds me of the countless times Heather and I put that cd in Big Bessie for car rides.

Today I don’t feel much of anything.  I don’t have such an overwhelming feeling of missing you that nearly threatens to mentally paralyze me.  I also don’t have any overwhelming feelings of peace either.

Life has very recently begun to remind me that I’m meant to be creating a new life for myself, since the one I had been living, and the future I had always envisioned, can no longer exist.  But I’m also at a complete loss for how to change.  I live in a cyclical motion of all the things that have always needed to be done even when you were alive, and still need to be done now that you’re not.  So in that regard, life cannot change.  The lawn still needs to be mowed, the groceries bought, the bills paid, the house cleaned, the job meant to continue going to to achieve all the aforementioned things.

I can’t really see anywhere that life is meant to be different.  Where I’m meant to change personally to achieve a different life.  If I’m honest with myself, and anyone reading this, I’m not certain that I want to change.  I like being this version of Sarah, because she did have her incredible mother, and still carries that incredible mothers love with her through every day.  I see no reason to stop doing that.

I see no pros in leaving your memory in the past where your physical body last was.  It’s not like I can pretend this house Heather and I still inhabit is not the one you raised us so bravely in.  Or fought your cancer in.  Or happily returned to after every draining hospital stay.  The one you sorely started to miss during the pandemic when grandma needed you most, and you practically lived there in the end.

I wish those months were not our last together.  I wish they could’ve been like all the previous years of my life were, where I would come home from dads, school, a friends, or work, and you would be here.  We’d be our silly and goofy introverted selves together.  We would go over to grandmas every weekend for fast food and dateline episodes, or the game show network, whatever it was was incredibly loud.  And we’d cuddle on her couch, and I’d put my feet under your legs, and force you to take horrible selfies with dumb filters.  Millions more of them.  I would record your silly stories, or the selfless way you always helped grandma.  I would have thousands of hours of joyful moments to look back on now, during all this sadness, that I don’t actually have at all.  

Most importantly, if I could change anything at all, I would’ve answered your call that morning. For some strange reason, my phone would’ve audibly rang, and I would’ve grabbed it and spoken to you.  Even if my coming to your aid would’ve had the same outcome, at least I would’ve had moments with your living body to say things I never got to say.  It is a regret I will live with until the day I am able to say them all to your face.

I hope wherever you are in the infinite universe is simultaneously close to me.  I hope it is warmer than I imagine the depths of the earth to be.  I hope you’re okay, and with everyone that you loved that left too.  Save me a spot and a big hug.

Until then, I will continue to fill the gaping hole in my heart with your undying love.

🤍 Sarah