Dear Ma,
I wish I could say the grief of losing you would hit me out of no where, but the reality, Ma, the heavy weight pulls me down into dark water. There is no sun where I go. There is no blue and white buoy attached to my arms, as heavy as if they were cast in cement. For a while I was above water, sitting on the boardwalk of life, taking in the sun just as the seagulls do. I saw the dark water below and realized only as I plunged in again that for a moment in time I actually was on top. Tears are hardly new in my…
Who Knows?
The wind blew past my face with a gale like force, and I had to laugh. Only Mama would show up with such a description, her name being Gail, the pun caught me by surprise. I turned to face the movement of air with confidence looking over this mountain range. “Mom, am I doing the right thing? Am I in the right place? Are you proud of me? I had no idea how bad things were between you two. I had no idea he had never gotten better. Why did you hide so much from me? I could have protected you more.” The whistling of the wind was my only…
Free at last
I stared up from my hands, remembering Mom always shows up through birds and nature, but nothing came. The wind paused and the chimes kept on singing, but I saw the wind coming through the trees to cause their song and dance. I stood up and walked to the edge of our deck and leaned against the railing. After many moments, I heard their cries above. Two red tailed hawks came from the east. They circled each other in wide circles and came over our neighbor’s house, and over our driveway. They then made a huge circle over our house. Peace fell on me and a smile came across my face, which I did…
Cue, Madness!
The waves of grief have washed over me as soon as I heard of George Floyd’s death. It seemed that all the work I had done to get to a place of hope again, fell to pieces with the words I heard over the news. Studying black theology in college, made me keenly aware of the privilege I have as a white woman, to be able to turn off the radio and choose to think on other things. I remember in college the profound white guilt I had, that all of us white kids had in our black theology classes, asking what can we do, how do we fix this?…
I miss my Mamabear!
Today I wanted to go through my Mother’s clothing and shoes to set them aside for family members who may need them, or once Covid is over, go to those in need. I was doing well with my heart, I had an amazing sleep last night, first time I slept a full 8 hours in weeks. I went and found the bags with her shoes. As I went through them I placed them into a box so they will be ready for their next journey. But then I came upon her sandals and her Merrill clogs she wore for years and years. Within seconds, moments flashed before me, picnics and…
Make It Go Away!
My heart belongs to a box of ashes upstairs. Sometimes I wish, I always wish I could have taken the cancer away from her and it had been me as ashes in the box upstairs. I’m at times really living like I am ashes, but I can make it all go away through travel. My Mother was starting to live life when she got cancer. She wasn’t taking any shit and she was doing her thing. I had always done my thing. Of course the mother wants it to be them and not their kid, but my mom…She was all I had. Everything paled in the reality of her sickness…
Help! Am I Crazy?
I hate to say I struggle with mental illness. I prefer to thrive with it. Show it who’s boss. Thank God for my meds and hear Mom’s sing song voice as she says “better living through chemistry” elongating the “e” sound the “y” makes and then laughing. But even as I thrive, there is an aspect of the struggle that I cannot deny. Grief is an emotion, but I would classify it in my life as a true illusionist. One of the things I fear is going through another episode, which does not occur when I am properly medicated. In my mother’s decline and in her passing grief became a…
Why? There are No Stages
Well my true feelings are a crap shoot. Someone told me that I needed to pull myself up by my boot strapes because my mom would have wanted that. I call bullshit. My mother taught me to look deep at triggars, to see that my boot straps are frayed, stop take the boots off and wash off all the shit thats caked to the bottom, string up stronger laces, get good socks and then lace them up. My mom analized things to deaht to try to figure out about how to be the best version of herself. She taught me that if it is looking too good to be true,…
Stuck
I am not sure how to describe the annoyance that comes with people’s suggestions that I get more busy, get a job, volunteer, that if I had more on my plate my grief would not be so bad…would be easier to move through, would not consume my mind. What people do not know is that I am consumed by the trauma that I am currently processing at all times. When I was in OTA school I dated and when things went wrong I made a column in my notes section as my mom instructed me, to write my thoughts as they came. Well let me tell you, it was very…
Grief
There is a robin that stands in the yard a looks right at me as I sit at the dining room table writing. He was neither spooked by Janet and I walking to or from our walk or as the rain pours down on him in these scattered showers we are getting now. His posture is strong and tall and he seems to be telling everyone that he is here, he is in charge and this is his yard, field, house, human. He often turns and faces me, his chest fire red with a dark head and a bright yellow beak. He picks at the dirt today as my Mother’s…
A Pass Through Grief While Enduring Mental Illness
