I lost my mother, Saturday night, January 16th, 2021.
She was on morphine and a little out of it. I sat with her as she took her last conscious breaths. I told her I loved her and forgave her. I asked her to forgive me and she looked at me with a sense of sadness and told me she loved me too and that she forgave me for all I had had to put her through. She went to sleep not long afterward. She never woke up after that. She lapsed into a coma and died Sunday evening. She was 89 years old.
I had spent most of my life with her. She was my best friend and often my enemy. She was my mother, therapist, and often my employer. She left me a broken shell of everything I assumed I had been. I found new life in her passing and her home became my own. I made all the right decisions. I mourned her passing in great gasps of agony. I often cried so hard that I had to stop what I was doing, driving, and just give in to the terrible sadness. I had lived alone since then.
It feels like years now. It has been barely 5 months.
Tonight, July 12th, 2021. I tried to sleep and failed yet again. I cry now, not just for my mother but also for my sister, who followed her mother in death less than a month ago. I didn't know my sister as well as I should have but we shared a bond and a familiarity that I have not had with anyone else. this morning, 3:41am, I miss them both and listening to Pink Floyd, "The Turning Away."
I always knew that Mom's death would be the hardest thing I would ever have to deal with.
I have known pain and loss and loneliness.
What I knew before this was like a watercolor and now I am painting with oils. The watercolor is real unto itself, but it dries quickly and becomes a memory as fast. The oils take years to dry and the memory persists for a lifetime. I remember mom stopping, seemingly at random, and saying that day it had been 40 years since her mother had died. She had a memory for those details. Now I know that it was more than a memory of someone's passing, rather, it was a time to feel the pain of their loss.
My Christian friends speak of the happy reunion in heaven. My family too.
I envy their faith. I don't have it. It feels like a lie to me. It always has.
I want to believe that mom is there in the heaven that she so wanted to believe in. Friends and family are often quick to point this out to me, but they don't realize that is not the heaven I have ever believed in.
So, tonight (morning) I feel all the loss and the loneliness of not having anyone to tell this too.
If I had a wish, I would meet a woman who would take away the loss and loneliness from me, even if just for a little bit so that I could sleep. Instead, I sit here in the dark typing this instead of finding that woman in my dreams instead.
