Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #350 - A year ago, it began

Thanksgiving 2014

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #350 - A year ago, it began

Hi Mom,

A year ago, today, is the day we consider that you started actively dying. Following our pizza party for Dad's 80th birthday and the 2015 Father's Day, the next day, a Monday, you would not eat.

13 days later you were gone.

But that was a long 13 day period.

So, we're closing in on a year since your death, and I am trying to figure out how I feel.

The obvious feelings are all here inside of me. I miss you. I am sad. I am grieving.

It's the more complicated feelings that I am trying to pin down. Or perhaps, I am trying to pin down the more elusive feelings. Not complicated, just difficult to define.

I have spent all day, today, thinking about this issue, these feelings, you, your death, this date a year ago. I have few answers. But I am about to quit and finish this in the morning. I need to sleep on it. So this will be another post that will be posted late.

I remember last year when Dad called to tell me you were not eating. We had not yet defined at the time that you were actively dying. We did not say those words yet. But we knew it was not a good sign that you would not eat.

There's an emptiness that I cannot define. And I guess, it's this emptiness that is also complex. The emptiness is caused by many things or exists for many reasons. I plumb this depth often, trying to find its shape, its meaning, its origin.

I have learned in this year to examine closely the rational-emotional split inside me. Rationally, intellectually, consciously, I knew you would not live forever, Mom. I knew we were on borrowed time since 2000 when you got the meningitis. I felt that I was prepared. We had so many close calls. So many bedside vigils. But emotionally, I was not ready; I was not prepared. And there's a place in me that has all this emotion for you, Mom, that is empty because it is never refilled with experience with you, at least not physically in person in corporeal form.

It's the adjustment of my emotions that is still in progress and maybe it always will be. Judging by the experiences of others who have lost a parent, or a mother, I can see that the grief goes on and on and on. I know from your own experience of losing your mother that you grappled with that grief for the rest of your life. I expect to do the same.

And so I mark these dates. I reflect. I connect. I strive. I have moved on. I am not trying to hold on to you, Mom. I am celebrating my life as lived now, in the moment, and I cherish the love we had and the loves I have now. And though my life is wonderful, there is something missing, and something I do not want to be missing, you.

Today is a day that I would really like to talk with you, Mom, and I have as best we can now. I hear you, and though it's not the same as it was, it will have to be good enough.

Reflect and connect.

Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.

I miss you so very much, Mom.

Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.

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- Days ago = 352 days ago


- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1606.21 - 10:10

NOTE on time: When I post late, I had been posting at 7:10 a.m. because Google is on Pacific Time, and so this is really 10:10 EDT. However, it still shows up on the blog in Pacific time. So, I am going to start posting at 10:10 a.m. Pacific time, intending this to be 10:10 Eastern time. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom. But I am not going back and changing all the 7:10 a.m. times. But I will run this note for a while. Mom, you know that I am posting at 10:10 a.m. often because this is the time of your death.