Monday, March 10, 2008

A Year Already

On the day of my mom's funeral I didn't cry. I sat there and was highly disturbed by the fact that I wasn't bawling. I did shed a few tears...I am not that calloused. But I guess I was still in too much shock to illicit any extreme emotions. A few months following the event, I wondered if I was just really strong enough to deal with losing my mother and having my father behind bars. This haunting thought continued to follow me well into the 10-11 month stretch after mom's passing. It has left me confused, frustrated and at times angry with myself. But by this final 12th month, my emotions finally caught up with me.

I guess it was just too good to be true. Everyone was praising me for how I have been dealing, coping, handling my grief. I started to believe that I was in fact an astonishingly strong person. I lied to myself. Is it possible that emotions stored up can come exploding out in full force? Now I find myself in a mess of water. Tears that flow for reasons I have no idea and reasons that cannot be fully explained. Grief in it's full form, ugly, miserable, antagonizing, painful, agonizing. I have no idea why the thoughts that I have come to my mind. Things like making homemade orange juice with mom at age 3, her brushing my hair and braiding it into perfectly beautiful french braids, the sound of her voice when I am searching for advice, her mowing the lawn and gardening on a sunny day, her smile! But they come at almost every minute of the day. I wonder if my world might ever be the same. Will my brain be able to be calm and steady once again? Can I go through another day without having to "check" out? Will I ever be able to go back to the 9-5? Oh Lord, please meet me in this pain. Please put out the fire of suffering!

Life has been dramatically altered. I no longer have someone to go to when I need to complain about how rude the checker at the grocery store was to me, and know that she would 100% take my side and agree with me because she unconditionally loves me. No one to ask about what I was like as a little girl. No one to come running with soup and a motherly touch when I am held up in bed with a horrible cold. I am too young to be stripped of these normal things.
And then I begin to think of all the children out there who are orphans, or living in undesirable situations. I had a normal childhood when compared to these and I begin to become grateful for the small amount of time I shared with my mother.

But I do wonder what life looks like for me now. I feel as though I am suspended in some sort of limbo land where moving forward is inevitable, looking back is painful and dealing with the now is excruciatingly difficult. It really has been almost a year! A year of not talking to, seeing, hearing, laughing with, hugging my mom. Oh how a year passes too quickly and at the same time extremely slow.