My Mom Is Still Gone

I am on the horse. My mom is leading it.

Just a few days short of six weeks since my mother passed, I still feel this is the strangest grief I have ever experienced. I was widowed at 36. Three years later, I lost my stepfather of 30 years. Then I lost my grandfather. Then I lost a good friend who was far too young to die. 20 days after that, my mom was gone, and just like that. When my husband died, many people disappeared from my life. There is a saying that widowhood rewrites your address book, and that happens because... reasons. Still, the people who stayed with me never expected anything from me, but they did understand I was still grieving months later. A precious one or two who have never lost a spouse understand my grief, while far less intense, will never go away.




Losing my stepfather was tough, but I was so focused on what I needed to do for my mom that I don't remember much about my own experience. Vividly, I remember pulling one of his coats out of the closet and putting it on. It swallowed me, and somehow that was a comfort. I stood there, in the closet and out of view, feeling like a small child in, finally, a safe space. I put my hands in the pockets and felt something strange. I pulled out a handful of nuts and then laughed myself into a full-on snotfest ugly cry. My stepfather loved to feed squirrels. Some would even come to the back door every morning and actually knock, expecting him to open the door and serve them breakfast.

Yeah, the ladies liked him.

When my grandfather passed, it was very sad. However, he was 91 years old, and only two years before, he was on top of his roof making repairs. I hated that he was gone, but I also thought that his life is exactly what most of us hope for-- long, healthy, and well-loved. So, I guess it seemed... natural. In fact, at his funeral, when everyone was dispersing, I couldn't move. I told my mom to go on, I would catch up to her, but I could not leave him until he was in the ground. She decided to stay with me, and it just so happened that she sat in a chair in front of me, and the youngest child in our family, my son, stood behind and slightly to the side of me. As he was lowered, the thought occurred to me to hope we continue to do this in "the right order."

Losing my mother however, has left me with a range of emotions difficult to describe. Let me first say I have shed tears for my friends, such as A. and C. who both lost their mother at an age much younger than I. I've always had such empathy for grief, but as in maybe every situation, there are just things you take for granted in life-- things you never think about to know you will miss, or now have to do, etc. My mom left me as the matriarch at 42. I just ache for those who had far less time than that.

And perhaps it is not only "death cooties" (whatever causes people to run for the hills when someone is grieving), but maybe it is because of my age that it feels for others like this is... natural. Only a couple of people have asked me how I am doing, specifically, with the loss of my mom. I have actually had people call me since her death, knowing she recently passed, and those people have said not one word about her, not one word about my loss. Listening in, one would not know anything, let alone a death, had occurred since we last talked. The only person who brings up my mom is my daughter, and that is probably because of who she was born to become (something some people refer to as a "medicine woman" or "holy woman." But also, because some huge strand of my mother's DNA hid itself inside me waiting for my daughter's conception. In other words, peas in a pod, sort of thing.

And so I feel very alone in this grief. Sometimes I want to tearfully scream, "IT HASN'T EVEN BEEN 6 WEEKS!! MY MOTHER'S CREMAINS ARE STILL IN A BOX ON MY FUCKING TABLE WAITING FOR ME TO FIND THE COURAGE TO LET GO AND SPREAD HER!!

WHAT THE FUCK??!! SAY HER NAME!!"

I want to call her and tell her exactly what kind of assholes I am dealing with here, because when my late husband died and I called to tell her what insensitive kind of assholes I was dealing with here, she told me things. She said things. And my heart calmed, my mind accepted her wisdom, and our call ended with me feeling much better. I can't call her now, and I can't remember what she said because right now the sound of my own heart breaking is drowning out the sound of all other thoughts.