How Fragile We Are

On September first I woke up at six am and saw multiple phone calls plus a text from my brother to call him. There were from 4:15 in the morning.

I knew what that meant.

On August 31st I had this thought, "My mom just needs to die." She was suffering, in a coma, she was drugged but in obvious distress. My brother made sure she got more medication to calm her. I sat at my desk and realized that my mother not only was going to die, but she NEEDED to die.

And die she did.

My mom died. In a facility, alone, exactly how she wanted to go so that she wasn't a bother to her family, so that medical professionals could handle the unpleasant side of her death, my mom's heart stopped probably from a build up of ammonia and other toxins. She fell into sleep then coma, and drifted away from us forever.

My mom died.

It's exactly one week later and I can't quite get my mind around it. I'm wearing her wedding ring, and my grandmas engagement rings stacked with my own and I still can't get over it. It's one thing to intellectually know that your parents are going to die some day. It's another thing for you to know your parent is terminally ill and see how ravaged they are by what is killing them. Its yet another thing to hear them talking about their funeral, seeing them and knowing they are totally ok with this death thing that's coming.

And when they die, it is yet STILL another thing and it's possibly the worst thing ever.

What puzzles me is that this pain, this grief, isn't unique. I know so many people whose parents have died and I amazed at how they are upright and functioning humans. How is it possible that a grief this wracking, this soul searing can fade? How does anyone recover from this?

You just do.

I don't know how yet. I know people who lost parents as children, and as old people, and they all still function so I know you do. Somehow we go on and life continues. I know for me I went to work about 2 and a half hours after learning my mother was dead. I went to have conversations and gather things and send messages and tidy up what needed to be sorted. I found having occupation kept me moving forward. Had I stayed home and done nothing I might have collapsed on myself like a neutron star. The weight of this grief is still oppressive, pressing down on me as though I weigh 500 pounds.

I came home from work and ate junk for breakfast.

Grief loves carbs.

There are major milestones in all lives. I just crossed one of the bad ones. And now I move forward into the rest of my life, using everything she ever taught me to be the person I am.




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