Monday, August 30, 2010

Life Without Mom


The house is blissfully quiet and still. An airplane buzzes overhead. My first thought is to call mom and talk, about anything and everything or perhaps nothing in particular.
That’s not an option anymore.

It’s been a busy week, with my aunt’s funeral in Florida and getting my youngest daughter back to college. A lot of moving around, so being still and quiet has its appeal. I start thinking of how life has already changed in the past 5 weeks:

--I talk to mom in absentia
--My siblings and I have a weekly call
--I check in with my dad daily
--There are acknowledgment notes to write
--I've started to get hot flashes!

The last is an interesting phenomenon, and not welcome especially in the heat of the summer. Something must have been triggered in my body’s chemistry (undoubtedly due to stress). I’ve not had time to focus on possible remedies, but I’m going to get busy and see if I can’t “re-balance” things. It’s obvious something is “off-kilter.” Amazing my body presents a living illustration.

The Jewish holidays are approaching, when mom and I would cook together. She and dad starting coming up to our temple years ago to attend services, and it was a time of being together to start a new year. As much as I have been trying to take one day at a time, I am keenly aware these days are almost upon us, and I know we will all feel the loss, the hole, the empty place that mom would have occupied.

I am told that getting through the first of everything over the next year is a process in itself, and after that, it will get easier. Just allowing time to pass is healing. When I’m busy, and I’ve seen this with my father too, it is easier, with other activities to occupy and distract us. It’s the quiet times when my thoughts drift to mom. And for my dad, the evenings and weekends alone are the hardest.
Being in my body keeps me rooted here on earth, and so yoga, exercise, meditation, spending time with friends and family, and work all help to keep me grounded. I still remind myself it will take time tofeel as if life is normal. Or maybe it will just be a new-normal.

Friday, August 6, 2010

Unmoored


It's finally starting to sink in. Or, rather it's starting to feel real: mom not being here, in my life. I wake up thinking about her. She's in my dreams. I try to remember when I last had a real conversation with her. The weeks in the hospital are all a blur.


It’s been ten days since mom died and eight since the funeral. During the last day of Shiva (having people over to sit with us and remember my mother), I started getting a sore throat which turned into an upper respiratory infection, complete with cough. My favorite naturopath reminded me that grief is the emotion associated with the lungs, so it’s not really a surprise where it hit me.


My life is up-ended, figuratively and literally. It doesn’t help that we moved in early June. I become confused by things I have known for years. Which way to go to the airport? Scheduling two things on the same day. Not sure whether I’ve done tasks. Discombobulated. Unmoored. My mom was an anchor, always there, and she isn’t anymore.


I am driving and start to cry. I never thought she would die. I knew she was going to die some day, but I had no awareness that it could possibly be so soon. Which in many ways is terribly naïve—and ironic. We all know people who are unwell, and who live with illness and disease every day, sometimes so valiantly, or not, but they live and get through their days.


Mom took such good care of herself and dad, made sure they exercised and ate their greens. She was vital up to the day she went into the hospital with the aortic aneurysm. And 11 weeks later she is gone, not from the operations themselves but from the infections and complications. Her body was strong but she would not want to have lived in a weakened and needy state, and we knew it. So, in the end, here was this beautiful, vibrant, healthy woman who loved her life and loved us so well, and whose time had come.


And that is the point, I guess. We never do know. And those trite expressions about appreciating life, having no regrets, and not taking people for granted, well, I know what they're talking about. It does make me wonder if I will live my life differently from now on. It's possible. I just need some time to get my bearings again.