It's been almost 6 years since my mother passed away. The most powerful years of my life. I am hardly the person I was when I was Dottie's daughter. She was such a big presence in my life. She left this gaping hole in my soul that I have since filled slowly, day by day, year by year, with self love. She gave my life significance and light. She needed me. She lived, at times, vicariously through my life adventures. And I grew from her art and her unlimited desire to paint. And because she has passed, I can now see all this without the blinders I used to tolerate that other side of her. I can see the balance.
I cannot even fathom what it must have been like for her when her mother passed and she was just 34 years old, divorced and mother of four. What I do remember was seeing my grandmother in a hospital bed in the middle of her living room. She was pale and sweaty and in so much pain. There was a towel wrapped around her side rail so she could twist it in her anguish! Even in the 1960's we did not use medication for this pain, what were they thinking? I remember being shipped off to family friend with my young brother. No explanation, no understanding even if my mom was coming back, much less my grandmother. It was not spoken of at all. My mother quickly married, we packed up our house and moved to Puerto Rico; an island in the Caribbean. That's how it was done.
In nursing school my group was responsible for presenting Death and Dying (we were studying Elisabeth Kubler-Ross). I wrote a play which we performed about a little girl who grandmother dies and she speaks out to the universe asking for understanding. "Where did she go? Why can't I be there?, Why won't you tell me?" I remembered my young curiosity and frustration. The weight of it seemed more important than the situation that unfolded at the "friend's" house with their fourteen year old son and the games he wanted to play. I was eight years old.
One of the best books I read about Death was by Joan Didion, "The Year of Living Magically". As a nurse and as a human, her book made sense of people walking around as zombies after the loss of a loved one. In a way it gave them permission to be lost for a while, as I remember my mom being after her mom died. It gave me a better understanding, I thought. It only makes sense that the body would provide some kind of chemical (hormonal) reaction to the stress of loss.
Grief is a purifying event. For most of us, we are racked with sadness and gut -wrenching sobs and tears. Our minds are filled with thoughts and regrets, I won't lie to you. The million, "what ifs", "I should have...". Every unpleasant thought or action of the past, makes it way through your grief. It is a thorough cleansing of the soul. The ego itself rears up to point out your faults. It is a tsunami and it will recede and with it carry away those thoughts to be replaced with a peaceful emptiness. A space to reacquaint yourself with your soul. Slowly the grace in you leads you to the gifts of your lost one.
I remember the immobility. I remember being offered medication and thinking, "Why would I want to dull this overwhelming grief, would I want a pill for overwhelming happiness, or a pill to numb resentment?" I wanted to own it, to move through it and come out on the other side whole.
I remember going out into a snow storm and screaming myself to my knees asking for guidance from above. I screamed until I could not utter a sound. I let the snow flakes melt on my face. I went inside and slept for the first time in months. Deep and abiding sleep.
The next day, I decided to make a goal of just one thing I would do each day (beyond getting up, having coffee, going to work). Just one small thing for me that I would feel good about accomplishing. It sounded like this, "today, I'll walk around the property, today I will go to yoga". At the end of the day I would know that I got that one thing done and it was enough. It may sound crazy, but three years later I found myself grinning when I realized I had accomplished six small things in my day and it felt great.
I don't cry anymore for her. I am eternally grateful for the experience of grief and all that I learned from it. I am not the woman I once was, I am more. I have taken on the gifts both from the grief and the memory of my mom and I am all of that. She will never be far as she lives in my heart and in the space where I abide. Sure miss you, Mom!
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