6/13/13

This is my grief, raw, open, deep and so hard to understand.  I loved my mother, I know that I loved her.  But there are times when I find myself completely fine with her loss, after only 2 months I fear I am handling this too well.  I barely cry, barely give her much thought.  And then it will hit me, and I dissolve into the madness of grief.  That irrational bargaining that comes with wanting just one more year, a day...even an hour to see them once more.  That sadness that fills all the hollows of your body and overwhelms you.  You can't move, can't think, can barely breath.  I don't dare to breath, I hold my breath to keep from screaming.     

I have such guilt, such futile desire to have her back for one more day to make up for 36 years of stupid mistakes.  All the times you hurt her, all the times you made her mad and all the promises you made that you did not keep.  It would take more than one day, one year, one lifetime to fix my blunders.  How do you fix what you broke when the only person left who cares is you?  And given the chance, I am not entirely sure I could.  I got a second chance after her first cancer, but I went on with my life and blundered through five more years of our weird, strained and loving relationship never sure where I stood with her.
 
I loved her, I hated her, I knew her so well, and know so little, I wanted to be her, and wanted not to be anything like her, I admired her and I reviled her.  They say this is the typical mother-daughter dynamic.  My aunt says that this was how it was between my mother and grandmother.  My mother never told people what she felt about them, she didn't tell you she loved you, not without prompting- not the first person to say it on the phone.  She never told me she was proud of me.  I always knew I was the child who blundered through life unaware of how to just be a adult.  I know they were proud of my brothers, I heard them say it enough. 

I wanted so much to have more time, for me.  Not for her.  I know this.  I needed to prove myself to be more than they thought I am.  I needed her to see me as a success so I could show her I was worthy of love, that I was someone to be proud of.  In the end, I think my grief is purely selfish.  That her  loss has settled into my thoughts as how her death effects me, not how I have lost her my mother the woman who gave birth to me and raised me.  Instead, it is about how I have lost my mother the woman who I use as a mirror to show me who I am.