Even when the world looks cold and unwelcoming And it feels like no-one has your back Remember the world needs your light even more because without you it will be even darker And you are loved, even if you don’t feel it right now Let these feelings pass and tomorrow you can tell a friend all about how terrible yesterday was Because tomorrow you may remember where you feel safe, and that you are loved and find hope again Stay Repost from @sara_rian_books • everything misses you. ♥ 𝚋𝚘𝚘𝚔𝚜 𝚊𝚟𝚊𝚒𝚕𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝚘𝚗 𝙰𝚖𝚊𝚣𝚘𝚗 ♥ 『𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚔 𝚒𝚗 𝚋𝚒𝚘』 #grief #grieving #griefsupport #heartache #normalizegrief #parentloss #griefjourney #loss #lifeafterdeath #loveandloss #lostlovedones #imissyou #losingyou #griefquotes #motherlessdaughters #motherlessmoms #bereavement #deathanddying #griefandloss #motherlessmothers #poetry #writersofinstagram #poetrycommunity #poetsofinstagram #griefclub #poetryofinstagram #griefhealing #suicidelosssurvivor #suicideloss #grievingdaughter https://www.instagram.com/p/CnoZM_aMenL/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
I should write here more often, but if I’m being completely honest, the more time that passes without my mom, the less it feels socially acceptable to hurt as much as I do. I know that’s not the case, but, still, I see people around me every day functioning so much more smoothly than I, having gone through the same thing as I’m still emotionally limping from. Also, with COVID-19, I’m well aware of all the loss being felt in the world, but especially my country right now, so I feel like theirs are the voices that need listening to. This whole year has been a confusing mix of PTSD, sadness, helplessness, fear, depression, anxiety, and time. Like God went nuts at Burger King and mixed all the fountain sodas together.
Anytime the virus, the vaccine, the anything is mentioned, it makes me think of my mom. The precautions we had to take with her weakened immune system instilled a lifelong respect for public health and taking care of others as well as myself. I’ve always dealt with germ-related OCD and emetophobia, so I’m used to being on high alert during cold and flu season. Adapting to avoid germs comes naturally (read: compulsively) to me, so seeing people struggle with the concept right now blows my mind and hurts my heart.
Christmas 2012 was the last Christmas I had with my mom, and it fucking sucked. I got to come home for a nice long visit from Chicago. I’d just gotten a job, but pushed my start date because I wanted to spend Christmas with my mom (having spent the last 5 fearing they’d be the last). My family used to have an annual Christmas Eve party that brought 40-60 friends/neighbors into our house every year. We’d spend the three days prior making ~60lbs of lasagna from scratch and cleaning the house to prepare it for guests. Every year, we would work right up until evening mass, and then resume immediately upon our return to be ready for guests to arrive around 7. People loved it. I hated it. For plenty of reasons, most of which I’m only now realizing were sensory-processing/anxiety related, having spent the previous 31 years thinking was just because I was a bad kid. It sucked because it was a chore. When we’re in school, the work would start the day Christmas break did. You didn’t get to breathe until that Christ child popped out. It felt like so much work for others to enjoy. At least we got new pajamas at the end of it.
That year, our family’s workforce was short staffed. My older sister was spending Christmas in Italy with her husband’s family, my dad was still working (very long hours) at the time, and my youngest sister was in college and wouldn’t make it down til the 23rd at the earliest. So it was mostly me and Mom, with the occasional help from Dad and Cristina. My mom was on oral chemo at that point, I believe, and it was just before she started using a cane for occasional mobility and oxygen as needed. But, she was still very much my mom, and would not come off as sick if you didn’t know it. But she was.
One night, Cristina woke up crying, and started getting sick. Throw-up sick. The worst kind. This lead to such a spiral. My mom ran to take care of her. I wanted to help, but I couldn’t get through my panic, and my dad slept because he had work. My mom. The woman with a wafer-thin immune system was sacrificing her potential health to care for her sick child. If my mom got the bug, she would have to be hospitalized. It wasn’t an “if”, it was a “come in the second you get sick so we make sure it doesn’t kill you” order. If my mom was hospitalized, Christmas Eve would be canceled. For the first time ever in my 24 years of life. The next day, my dad caught it (a milder, but more complainy bout) . At that point I was likely alternating between Xanax, saltines, pacing, and crying. It really was just down to me and my mom- fearing the moment one of us became the next. While Dad and Cristina recovered, Mom and I prepped. With each task it was understood that we could and would cancel at a moment’s notice. But we didn’t. We pulled it off. We had the damn party and people had a blast. My mom and I evaded the bug by the grace of God.
The Perfect Christmas.
But it wasn’t. As the most annoying of the neighbors finally trickled out around 11pm, I crashed. I went into my room and started crying in bed. I had come home because I wanted to spend time with my mom because I knew she didn’t have much left, and instead I spent it in visceral fear of illness and under immense stress for the enjoyment of others. I realized I had never just had a Christmas Eve to celebrate with my family alone. Ever. Like normal families do. To be the guest, not the host. I felt like a selfish spoiled child, but I was just a scared one.
My mom came to find me in my room after a few minutes to see what was up. I wanted to tell her what was wrong without bringing up her imminent death, but there wasn’t a way around it. It was about it, but it wasn’t. So, I let it all out. I told her I hated that I had to spend time entertaining others instead of spending time celebrating with her. I wept. I told her how exhausted I was with it all. How fucked up and unfair it all seemed. She rubbed my back. She listened. She comforted. She promised me we wouldn’t have to do it the next year.
My life has had a lot of lows recently and that always makes me miss my mumma so I thought I’d post a little tribute to her today. She was my best friend and I wish y’all could’ve known her. #iloveyou #motherlessdaughters #missyoumom https://www.instagram.com/p/CEsZiiVgfIs/?igshid=pl7zoelgnov4
They don’t realize how much it actually hurts. They don’t know what you think about everyday.They don’t realize how little words make you feel.
They don’t. That is... until they do.
When they loose someone they realize all these things. You can tell by the way they look at you. They get it, they feel sorry for all those time they told you to be strong. They get it.
And that’s not the best news, because lord knows I’m always tired anyway.
This year, I forgot that April comes after March. And March, being the month we’re currently in, is almost up. April must be just around the corner.
In some ways, I feel like I’m giving up. Waving the white flag of exhausted apathy. The first few years, I was emotional the entire month. Now, just thinking about spending the energy like I have the past five years: obsessively comparing where I am to where I was in 2013 day-by-day, overcompensating socially as to not come off as a buzz-kill, wondering which flaws in myself were birthed out of her death and which are entirely my doing makes me feel anemic.
People say grief gets better with time. If you’ve read this far, you know that’s bullshit. It changes, sure, but it remains constant in its existence. An ankle sprain gets better with time because tendons and muscles heal. Time, to my knowledge, will not morph my deceased mother’s ashes into a reanimated Momma-golem ready to make up for lost time. I believe there are specific laws in physics/ethics that prevent it.
Time makes grief wear away at you like a file. A large (albeit, metaphorical) file that can scrape off your whole back in one fellow swoop. It whittles down the flesh, it leaves the nerves exposed. Then the world goes on in spite of it. Eventually, your entire existence is a wound, exposed. The air hurts, the sun hurts, even bed hurts. Yet people expect you to wake up every day and run through sprinklers spraying lemon juice like it’s nothing. Don’t wince while you do-- it implies weakness.
At this point, my story feels stale. As I’ve gotten older, more of my friends have lost loved ones, and my own experience isn’t making it any better. It’s hard seeing people you love hurt, extending yourself in the way you wished people had to you, and being dismissed. I don’t like being unable to help, but I have to respect it. My grief isn’t serving anyone, but it’s also not going anywhere. I don’t know what to do about it, but I now know that I will likely do it alone. I’d ask my mom if the whole “committing to a life of isolation” is just a part of being a woman in her 30s, but she’s dead, and the answer won’t be of any use by the time I get to talk to her again, so I guess I’ll just let Google be my guide.
