6
After another year of neglecting this blog, I wasn’t sure if this post was going to happen. Every time I’ve managed to steal a few moments alone with my laptop this week, I’ve found myself staring blankly at the screen before me.
In many ways, six years later, my grieving season hasn’t changed much. It always starts around the beginning of October, or whenever the leaves on the trees change colour. They never fail to taunt me with reminders of my last car ride home from the airport with her and all the other “lasts” that come with this time of year.
I’ve been looking through the same photos, listening to the same sad songs, and watching the same videos that I do every November. I’ve been mumbling under my breath every time a minor inconvenience throws a wrench into my daily routine because for whatever reason it just seems to suck that much more.
If you relate to nothing else, I’m sure if you’re reading this you can empathize with the annual grief-funk that so many of us experience. Some years just hit worse than others.
Today’s November 28th and that marks exactly six years without you. Six years and I still think about you every day. Your strength. Your poise. Your graciousness. Your smile.
6 years feels like I should be “over it” and have “moved on” with my life, ya know?
But sometimes I just want to hear you laugh or give you a hug. I want to wake up, walk downstairs into the kitchen, see you drinking coffee at the island with a batch of blueberry muffins already made, and be greeted as if I’d just arrived home from a year-long trip.
One thing they never tell you is how quick memories fade
My sister seems to have a much better memory than me, but one thing we both agree on is how hard it is to recall memories. It feels like as the years pass, the memories fade a little more. My therapist asked me what my relationship was like with my mom the other day - I tried to go down memory lane but my mind drew blank. I do know for certain that I was a mama’s girl. That might even be an understatement. I was attached to her hip… and I’m talking literally attached until maybe grade 5. She was the only 38 year old woman among other 5 year olds spending her lunch at my class pizza parties. She would pick me up early at friends sleepovers so I didn’t have to spend a night apart from her. She spent every school drop off listening to me kick and scream and cry while my teacher detached us physically so I could attend class. As a grown adult it’s no wonder I have social anxiety, and I wish she had let me go a bit sooner.. but as a 26 year old that misses her mom, I wish she had held on a little longer. Although specific memories fade real quick, when I think about her, I can only really see and feel love. The complexities and simplicities of it. Nothing else seems memorable enough to matter and I’m okay with that too.
You always think about the what ifs
Because my mom passed away from an aggressive cancer, our time with her was relatively short. I don’t think any of us realized just how quick it would progress. I spent most of her final year on earth away at university. Looking back, there are a lot of “what ifs” – signs I may have missed, symptoms I should have taken more seriously, conversations we should have had.
I go back to 2015 and try to relive every time I saw her. I remember coming home for Thanksgiving and looking up at her in the fluorescent lights at Walmart and noticing how jaundiced her eyes were. I knew I didn’t have much time left with her in that moment. Should I have stayed home from that point on? Why did I return back to school? Why did I only fly home less than 24 hours before she took her last breath? It’s agonizing to think about all the what ifs and the things you would have done, could have done, should have done differently in order to change the outcome of something that changed your life forever.
You think about the future
I can’t help but think about all the things she already has missed out on and will continue to miss out on. At 26 you realize how much of your life you have left to live without her. Your 20s are a formative time in your life. You speed through so many milestones… milestones that she should be there for. Graduations. Engagements. Marriages. Babies. Buying a house. Landing your dream job. You think about all the memories you’ll never get to make.
You’ll never take anyone for granted
After losing someone close to you I feel like you do one of two things – you may push everyone in your life away from you OR you’ll pull them ever closer.
I tend to push people away. I feel like her death has hardened me. I try to emotionally disconnect, hoping that I don’t feel “anything” if something were to happen.
I’m really trying lately to spend more time appreciating the wonderful support system I have in my life. I’m lucky to have a close family and really great friends who would go to the ends of the earth for me. Sometimes, I just find myself just staring at people, trying to memorize their facial features, their mannerisms, their laughs… because you don’t realize how fast those memories start to fade once they’re gone.
You realize your own mortality
Losing a parent (or anyone for that matter), especially when it felt as if it wasn’t their time to go, really puts things in perspective. Our life here on earth is time stamped. So cliché, but live it up while you can.
No one, and I mean absolutely no one knows the right thing to say
And that’s because there isn’t a right thing to say. When someone dies, the first steps are usually pretty clear: you fill their refrigerator with meals, go to the funeral, send a card. But after the initial period, the process tends to go off-script. Everyone tiptoes around directly addressing it. Although there is no “right” thing to say, there are a few wrong things, IMO. For example, “How are you doing?”.. Don’t take this the wrong way but “How are you doing?” sounds a lot like “Please just say you’re doing ok, because it’s uncomfortable if you say you’re not doing well.” PLUS I’m likely going to just respond with “fine” or “OK,” rather than really communicate my feelings and be a burden. What else not to say? Nothing at all. Instead: how about “Remember when?”
To be fair, knowing the right thing to say doesn’t come naturally and there really isn’t anything you can say that’s gonna make it better. But just FYI not talking about it sucks too. This leads me to my next point, because it feels like for everyone but me:
Life moves on
I hated writing that last line. Why? Because it’s not fair. Life shouldn’t move on. The day my mom died, I remember being in Shoppers Drug Mart seeing people talking and laughing, Christmas shopping, and merely walking down the street. I remember thinking how fucked up it is that these people’s lives could go on when hers couldn’t. But it’s true. Life moves on. People will forget, and everyone else will move on with their lives - as they should… as I should.
Speaking of moving on… My therapist suggested writing a “goodbye” letter to you to help come to terms with my grief. She feels after getting to know me that there are things I was unable to say to you before you died. And while I will do my homework if you’re reading this, Susanne.. I won’t share that here. But one things for sure: it’s not a goodbye, it’s a see you later. While specific memories fade quick, I see you all the time. I see you in the small, insignificant moments. The big moments. I see you in the rainy Fridays. I’ll see you in the cotton candy sunrise tomorrow. I see you in the flame of every candle I burn, in every glass of red wine I pour. The serendipity. The love I feel around me. See you in my dreams being realized. In the tattoo I know I’ll never actually get on my wrist. In the grocery store moms that make me stop dead in my tracks. I’ll see you nowhere and I’ll see you everywhere.
Love always,
Sarah