My momma died 10 months and 2 days ago. Five years ago today my Grandpa, my mother's father, passed away. I feel like there is meaning there...but not quite sure what it is. Mom's birthday was also on the 1st and it was the very first one since she died. Also, Mother's day is Sunday.
The past ten months and even the past five years I have learned who I am, who I want to be and what life really is like. Before my Grandpa died and then was followed by several family members in death, and especially before the life changing moment when I became a member of the "Motherless Daughters" club, I think I was naive or ignorant to grief. I don't know that a person can fully understand grief unless he or she lives through it; suffering the aches of the heart and stillness of the air when they can no longer hear the voice of their loved one, can no longer see or feel them. That void is indescribable. But do I believe they are gone? They are gone from their bodies, from many of our senses...but I believe our spirits are connected and our loved ones live on. I have felt it. I have experienced almost magical things since my Grandfather, my Grandmother and my Mom have each passed away. I will share some of them here, but some of them are so special to me that few people will ever hear me retell them. I know life goes on after death. Even though my Momma is gone....from this earth. She lives on in spirit.
I will reflect on the many losses I have experienced in my life, but the biggest loss was profoundly the loss of my Momma. She and I were deeply connected. When she would call or text me I could feel it, sense it. Sometimes I would sense her thinking about me and I would be the one to call. "I was just thinking about you and wanted to tell you..." I would usually hear on the other end. It wasn't ALL the time, but far too many for it to be ever considered a coincidence. We saw the world very similarly. We had the same views on politics, religion and social issues...this might seem like a given because you could argue that the reason I see the world the same as my mother was because that is how she taught or raised me to see things. But my Mom let me decide for myself. We never talked politics until I was a young adult with views of my own. Furthermore, my brothers see many of these things very differently than my Mother and I. Mom and I scored the same on personality tests, we shared the same horoscope and sign (Taurus), we looked alike for the most part. I WAS my Mother's daughter. I didn't always feel that way growing up...but it is very apparent today. I hear her voice in my own voice when I say certain phrases, tell certain stories, find amusement in certain things. I am my Mother's daughter even though my Mom is no longer with me. I will always be a part of her and she will be a part of me. That cannot be undone, replaced, exchanged or challenged. It is who we are. So what do I do now that she is gone?!
I can no longer call her, text her, send her facebook messages. We will no longer plan trips to take, movies to see or birthday lunches to share. I will not have another person on this planet who sees my kids with the same intense affection, admiration, or approval as my Mom did. I am the only one left on this earth who sees them as the only worthy children of my unconditional love. This has revealed itself many times and it makes my whole body ache with the loss as if I was cut clean in half like a paper doll torn from head to toe, one arm, one leg half a body. I feel like I can never be my kids Grandma. She was their joy, their safe place. They could touch anything in her home, say anything at all, look any way they want and she would only see perfection. When you lose someone who sees you that way it has got to do something to their little worlds. I don't care how young they are. They have to feel that impact. I can't fulfil that for them. I have to discipline, teach and prepare them for the world. Grandma Jan was just there to love on them and shower affection, joy and confidence. And this aspect of our loss of my Mother is only an ounce of the many roles and the many nooks and crannies of my life she filled which are now vacant and cold...empty.
I have had a similar routine to get me through grieving moments ever since she passed away. I would resign to "my room" which is a room in the basement full now of my Mother's things or things that remind me of her, and I read letters journals or look through pictures, sometimes I even just sit. Two comfy chairs that were once in her library room are in my "meditation room"--as I call it--along with books, photo albums, framed pictures, paintings, boxes of letters, a large clock that used to hang in her living room, 3 lamps that never get used. I even have her old journals which I pour over when I need to hear her voice. It is like I find a memory of her voice and I use that when I am reading her words, with her hand writing and somehow it relieves the ache for that sound just a little bit.
I don't think a mother's love ever leaves a person, when a mother has left a profound print on her child's life. But I also don't think the spirit goes very far, and I believe my Mother is close by. In this blog I will discuss many of the items I introduced on this first post and more. I want to have an outlet to think out and categorize my experience in grief and loss and most importantly moving forward. I am my mother's daughter...she is a part of me and I a part of her. I know she misses me. She wants to hug me and talk and laugh with me like we used to. But my loss is greater, bc I believe she can see me and she hears me; I just can't see and hear her. There is a division between those who are living in bodies and those who are living on as spirits. I wish I knew what it was and when and how they get to come and visit us and try to communicate. Because I strongly believe they do. There are people who have passed on who are cheering you on, lifting your spirit up and trying to communicate and connect with you. I believe this.
