Dizzy

Grief is the by far the biggest dichotomy I’ve ever experienced. 

It’s only been two weeks that we’ve been without you, yet it’s already been two weeks. 

I feel raw, exposed, and wounded. Always seeking cover. Happiest when it’s finally dark and I can find asylum under the weight of my blankets. Yet I’m almost offended when my sadness isn’t acknowledged. The cashier chirps “Have a nice day!” and I want to snap at her “My mother is dead. YOU have a nice day”. 

I won’t circle the wagons. I won’t call to my sisters to lean into and cry on. Yet when they come anyway I cling to them as if they are my very breath. Desperate for the light they provide and greedily taking the balm they offer my torn spirit. 

I shun the things that remind me of you. I trim back my rose bushes. I put the photos on the highest shelf. Yet I look for signs everywhere: feathers, cardinals, butterflies.  I dream about you. Frantic plays full of jail cells and chains. I’m being kept from you. How do I get you out?  How much do I owe? I wake up sweaty and sick. 

Oh, Mama. I’m dizzy with the need of wanting you. Yet I’m dizzy with the want of needing to forget. 

Muffins

Today has been a rough day. It was Muffins With Mom at preschool. I’ve been telling  myself I didn’t have to go, but I woke up feeling like I needed to. Laurel and Rhodes have been so excited about it and I really didn’t want to disappoint them. So with a few deep breaths and lots of prayers in we went. 

I took one look at the crowded room and knew I’d made the wrong decision. I could feel the tears welling up as I prayed that I just get through this breakfast.  I moved us towards the buffet line and asked each twin what they’d like like on their plate.

“Muffin? Strawberries? Yogurt?”

Blank stares 

“Laurel. Rhodes. What do you want to eat?”

“Eat?” 

Oh, heavens. I might as well be asking them to MAKE me breakfast. 

I fill a plate and we venture out into the crowd to a table. When we get settled they both refuse food and commence to just stare at me. I’ve never felt awkward around my own children but this really was. I pick at a muffin and chat with a few friends who stop by to offer sweet words of condolences (which brings my anxiety way down) and it’s finally time to take the wonder twins to class. By the way, they have never spoken or eaten this entire time. 

After dropping Rhodes and Laurel off in their class I reach for my phone to call mom. It’s my habit to call her after drop off and I know she’d think the awkward muffin breakfast was funny. She loved twin stories. As I’m pressing the button labeled “mom” it hits me that I won’t ever make this call again. Nobody will ever appreciate my stories like she did. She would ask me to repeat parts just to be sure she had the details right for her retelling to daddy later. 

I let the phone fall back into my purse and finish my drive in silence. Tears are streaming and my stomach aches in a way I’ve recently become refamiliar with. It’s taken me awhile to realize what it was. It’s the same feeling I’d get at camp and when I went away to college.  I’m homesick. 

Mama will always be home. 

Now

The numbness is wearing off and the pain is settling in. I wonder if grief is like surgery. F always tells his patients day three is the worst. 

I find myself at times gasping for a breath I didn’t know I was holding. The tears begin and my chest contracts with an ache I’ve never felt before. Sort of like a charlie horse in my broken heart. It surprises me  mirroring the middle of the night leg cramps I used to get growing up. “Eat bananas” you’d tell me. If only you could give me advice on how to get through this. 

Sleep and Hunger evade me. I force myself to eat but everything tastes like I’ve burnt my tongue. Grief even has a flavor. I try to sleep. I get into bed and stare at the celing. I can hear the cat purring above my head and feel the cool air from the fan. My mind wanders to what the calendar holds tomorrow and I realize it’s the day you will be cremated. I have a fleeting thought that it’s good you won’t be cold anymore. That you hate to be cold. 

I can tell that the kids are starting to wear thin of my tears. Laurel sighs when she catches me crying. I refuse to hide my grief  from them.  You are worth grieving for. Your death has left a space in my heart. In my daily life.  I want your grandchildren to see what mourning looks like. What filling that space with peace and tears and gratitude looks like. They need to learn how to pay tribute in the small corners of the every day. How to honor a family member who sacrificed and suffered. 

Oh, Mama how I miss you. I see you everywhere. In Laurel’s long thin hands. In my climbing roses. In my hot tea in the mornings. I know these small things will bring me comfort in time, but for now they are the salt in my very new raw wound.

I know you are finally whole and complete and it is my turn to ache and be broken. 

Tidbits

I never knew death was catered until today. After you were gone I heard the nurse tell her trainee “after a patient dies we always call the cafeteria...” I remember being surprised that canceling lunch was their first priority (especially since you were being tube fed). Sometime later I find a cart next to your door. It’s apples, carefully arranged napkins, and tiny creamers on ice look out of place. The chocolate chip cookies are especially jarring. Were we supposed to eat this? Offer it to the funeral home picking you up? Was it a consolation prize for the doctors - better luck next time infectious disease team... have a tangerine? 

The last breath you took looked as if you were getting ready to say something really important. I will always wonder what it was. 

Telling Daddy you were gone will haunt me forever. 

Memories I’d suppressed to guard my heart against the dementia came flooding back: white birthday cakes with pink touch-me-nots; sunburnt shoulders and sandy toes eating sweetened condensed milk out of the can; fresh flowers by my bed every time I came home; planting flowers in the rain  

Mama, who will call me Lissy now?