Dear Mama

Mama, 9 years old

It has been two months and one week since you left. I know you taught me everything I need to know, except how to live without you. I know you would frown upon that, considering your own fierce independence and that of which you expected of me.

I am sure somewhere within me, you have left all the tools I need to now be the matriarch, but right now, I feel like the bumbling fool. I tried on a pair of your shoes, and they were a bit too small. How funny, I overfill your shoes, but fill them not at all.

Some nights, your five year old grandson tells me he is sad. I ask why, and he tells me he misses his grandma. "I miss her, too."

And we snuggle a little closer.

There are so many things I would like to say, though I thought I had said everything once your health was clearly failing. Still, some things to tell you about hadn't happened yet. I've kept every voicemail. I listen to them sometimes, when I think I am strong enough to breathe through them. 

Daughter, Mother, Grandmother

I miss you every day. Sometimes, I think to call you --and not that I wish I could, but I think to pick up the phone and talk to my mom. Then I realize I cannot. A friend of mine, one you adored, one who adored you, and one who lost her mother long ago, said that never really goes away.

There is so much of you I will carry on, but I know more of you will spread through my daughter, your granddaughter most like you, once she grows into herself, and even a little now.

There is much of you I might not have gotten the chance to know, though I listened to and recorded and often retell your stories. Yet, it was not until toward the end that I think I might have caught a glimpse of you when you were younger, before you were married, before you were a mother. Once you were widowed and began to somewhat heal, it was so fascinating to watch you pursue new interests and embrace new experiences for all they were worth. It is such a shame your life was cut short before those things could fully form. I suppose I just wish I could have seen more of it.

I don't want to end this, Mama. Maybe someday, I will write more, and I think I probably will. However... 

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.

Wingless Vultures Ride The Current of Death

I smell vulnerability.

My stories are neither new nor uncommon. I know this because between support groups and happenstance, I have heard too many variations of them to say anything but they are all too common.

When someone dies, the wingless vultures, sensing the current, come swooping in to scavenge whatever they can. These people act like they are at some sort of end-of garage sale give-away. The practice, and all that it implies, all the nastiness that comes with it, disgusts me on a visceral level. I have taken the high road on this particular avenue, not because I am some kind of saint, but because I am exhausted; because I know the best thing given to me by those I have lost cannot be taken from me -- the love and memories, the legacy of people themselves. However, when I know the deceased had wishes to be carried out, do not get in my way as I see to exactly that.

When my late husband died, a couple of his out-of-state family members showed up at my house. I had never met them, and that was intentional, as my late husband didn't really want to cut them out of his life completely, but he didn't want them around his wife and children, either. Just to say how close he was with them, my late husband had an entire previous marriage of which they had no knowledge. He traveled for a living, and when he ended up in their area, sometimes he would visit. He always had his dog with him, so these family members knew her, and just as everyone did, loved her. My late husband was killed on his motorcycle when a driver made a left turn directly in front him. I don't think I will ever forget the call I got from one of those family members, pissed that she had not been able to obtain many of his belongings, "If you really loved him, why weren't you with him that day?"

Picked Dry.

 And, as if she had no understanding of the immediate legally binding contract of marriage, "You're living in his house, using his truck, and keeping his dog."

It turned out, they were after his truck and his dog. My late husband had spent years building that truck with a stepson from a previous marriage, one he was still in contact with up until his death. He wanted the stepson to have the truck, and so that is where it went. As for the dog, she came with the man when I married him, and then she quickly became family.

"Mommy's Crying Again": Grieving With Young Children

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My five year old son walked in on me doing the ugly cry. That's the heaving snot-fest, if you've been blessed to never experience it, or just didn't recognize the description.

"Why are you sad?"

"Because my mommy died, and I really miss my mommy."

"You really miss your mommy?"

"Yes."

"That is sad."

He left the room, and I heard him tell my husband, "Mommy's crying again." For a second, I smiled, because he knew his dad had this; in his little mind, dad would make it better.

And Then My Mom Was Gone, Too

Three days ago, my mom passed away. She was the last of my family above me in the tree. Really, she was the last of those I didn't choose. I have no parents or grandparents now. I have biological family out there, and I even interacted with them during her final week, but once everything is done regarding my mother, so are we. The relationships are not worth describing because they are not worth having, and some people will just understand that. Don't come at me with inexperienced rose-colored lenses on that one is all I am saying. It is difficult to explain how alone I feel now although, I do have my children and my husband, all of whom I love dearly.

My daughter nicknamed my mom "O.G." for "original gangster." She also said my mother was a warrior, but she was the sweetest. People who made it into my mother's inner circles adored her, and she was kind to those who did not, but one would never cross a line with her and not know it. When I brought someone new to her house, she would offer the niceties (drink, food), but she would also say she would show them where the kitchen was "one time." In other words, I've accepted you. Act accordingly, and get your own drink. She was assertive and she had a way of putting people in their place with few words and class. My daughter and I will never forget the day Mama shut a woman down with one simple but unambiguous "Okay."

The Mythical Grief

If you have delicate sensibilities, leave now, because there is nothing gentle about grief and I refuse to pretend there is.

Nearly six years ago, I found myself in a support group for young widows. After learning so many of their stories and frustrations, all the while living my own, one thought kept occurring to me: human beings have dealt with grief for as long as human beings have been human beings. How on earth do we not have this down by now? How is it that so many family members and friends and employers and oft visited grocery store clerks have no idea what to do with or say to someone so shattered by a death?

I don't have that answer, but five days before the sixth anniversary of my late husband's death, a friend of mine was killed under circumstances so similar, any description is beyond words-- even for someone who loves to weave them together in their most effective form. I didn't get to grieve only my friend because his death ripped open a still very tender scar, and so many stored away memories oozed into the center of my focus. When my friend's widow posted a raw response to the well-meaning, I felt her pain, her torment, and I felt again my own. I remembered, why? Why? Why don't people understand this?

Let us look over this Mythical Grief, and let us not flinch.