Grief

If you haven’t snoozed or unfollowed me already, and if you you’d rather not hear about my grief journey, this might be the time to hit snooze or unfollow.

Of all the tragic things, losing my mom at 94, after a nearly 13-year battle with Alzheimer’s, doesn’t rank that high on the tragic things scale. In fact to be totally honest her passing was something I prayed for now and then, though I always circled back to “Your will be done” and left it at that.

It’s been 16 days since I held your hand last, when Dad’s worst fears came to fruition: you starved to death. We stopped force feeding you and you starved. I joked with you, in your last days…. for a chic who loved food, this was a shitty way for you to go out. And I said I wouldn’t blame you if you haunted me, then I cried and asked you to visit me.

I’ve been kind of surprised at how sad I am considering I’ve been sad for over a decade already about losing you a million different ways. People would sometimes ask during your late stage Alzheimer’s if you knew me when I visited and it always took my breath away because it had been years since you knew me. I had just gotten used to it, I knew you and it didn’t matter that you didn’t know me.

And I can’t even talk about Dad. I can’t  fathom how he feels. I call him twice a day like I have for the last 7 years or so. We talk about the things but I’m afraid tell him how much I miss you. Because I don’t want to burden him with my sadness. Because I think he’s barely hanging on.

I have a basket of clothes that need to be washed on delicate cycle and in that basket are the clothes I wore when I saw you alive the last time. It smells like your room. And I can’t wash the clothes and I can’t walk into our closet and see that basket without sobbing.

And Faith, I am not sure about it right now and I feel ok with that because it feels like a process I am navigating. I want to believe you were called home and the ashes that are in the secretary ain’t all she wrote. I spend time in church and in prayer and teaching the littles that God knows them and loves them and that seems to part of the process.

I miss you. I love you, Mom.