Twenty-five days without you, Mom. I'm still figuring it all out. I don't have a better handle on it today than I did a month ago; I feel pretty much the same. The thing I never really understood about grief until now is how fluid it is. Someone told me (I can't remember which kind soul told me this, but it's true) that grief is a lot like sitting on a shoreline. Like water lapping at the sand, grief kind of washes over you from time to time. Some days I'm okay, some days I'm not. Some days I THINK I'm okay, and then a wave sneaks up on me and the next thing you know I"m pulling the car over on the side of the road and crying in the Bean Town parking lot.
Today I feel like talking about the alone part. Mom wanted to travel this path by herself, with only my dad, my brother and I walking alongside her. When she woke up one morning and couldn't swing her legs out of bed, Dad had to call the ambulance to come get her. She worried and worried about what the neighborhood was going to think. She preferred that any perceived weakness, physical or otherwise, be handled privately. So we did it all ourselves: trips to Mayo in Mankato, intake at Lutz Wing, therapy appointments, scans, tests, diagnoses, daily life. We did it ourselves, and it was okay. More than okay. I've been thinking a lot about that lately.
Technology today has provided front-row access to witness the lives of our friends and family at really every level imaginable. Some people crave the connections to others; they update their social media regularly and let people become part of their experience. I admire that; transparency on that level is a scary thing to me, and I'm always in awe of the people who can express that to the world. I wasn't really raised that way; the model I grew up under was very private when it came to personal stuff. I don't think there's a right or wrong, I think you do what works for you.
We did what worked for us. From the day my parents left their hometown and struck out on what would be a journey to four more cities and six more houses, we were pretty much on our own. Both of my parents came from the same small town; they both have siblings and I have a whole lot of cousins. But once we left Salem, we only visited a few times a year and only a handful came to us. I can remember packing up houses alone, moving into houses alone, and countless holiday and birthday celebrations that had exactly four attendees. This isn't a sad thing; let me clarify: it was exactly right. The few times I can remember big family reunions, there was always an undercurrent of chaos that never really felt right; like visiting someplace fun but not wanting to live there, if you know what I mean.
Mom had her own personal reasons for keeping us tightly together. I feel certain that I understood my mother on some pretty deep levels. Some things she told me, some things I just figured out on my own as I grew up and learned the extended family dynamic. Mostly, I think Mom wanted our family and her love for us to be at the very center and core of our beings. She wanted us to never doubt it; to never wonder if we were loved or where our place was in the world. No matter what came our way, what mountain there was to climb, we would always have her and would have each other.
That doesn't mean we always got along...! Mom was a strong personality with an unwavering sense of justice. She knew the difference between kind and unkind, between right and wrong. As my brother and I grew up there were the usual teenage battles; our struggle to be fiercely independent vs. her will to make sure our independence didn't come at the cost of our morality. The thing is, I could have a knock-down, drag-out fight with my mother and even when we were the most angry, the most hurt, or the most frustrated with each other, there was absolutely NO QUESTION about the love part. I don't think Mom always felt that herself growing up, and she was going to be damned sure that my brother and I didn't grow up that way.
I think that fierceness with which we love each other, the four of us, was born from the tight family unit they made for us growing up, and the way that being alone, just us, was always made to feel exactly right. We had each other, always, at the end of the day. And at the end of her days, she knew how she wanted to spend them.
I know that some of our family and friends do not, can not, understand the decision we made when it came to traveling this journey privately. The thing is, we traveled our whole lives together privately. Everything about it felt right; it just was.
And now that she, the sun around which we built our lives is gone, I think the hurt in my heart and the profound hole in the center of me, is just the price I have to pay for being loved like that. She loved us so much, she loved me so fiercely, and I have always known it. No matter how much it hurts to be without her right now, I would not trade it. I would not. Sometimes, when I feel like my edges are coming apart and my threads are unraveling and I feel like I'm wandering around without a compass, I just ask myself: would I have wanted this any other way? No.
If we had made the calls earlier, told the whole world what we were managing, we would undoubtedly have been surrounded by dozens and dozens of friends and family trying to help us carry the burden. We have felt so much love and support since Mom's passing, I have no doubt in my mind that we would have felt that love and support all along. But in our case, doing it together, alone, was the way it had always been, was the way that it was and the way we needed it to be. I know now that I couldn't have navigated Mom's illness the way I did if I had been also making time for extended family and for the hospitality I would have wanted to provide them and at the level Mom would have wanted for them.
Somehow Mom knew that this was a path for us alone; I would not have wanted to spend even one second less next to her bed, holding her hand, telling our stories, watching television, eating lunch. I would not have wanted one single second to be spent calling people and explaining things, and entertaining company and putting on my company manners. It may have been selfish of me, but I got to have all of her minutes. All of them. I'm so lucky.
Mom asked for this, she said so many times that she didn't want us to make any phone calls. I felt a little guilty at the time, but I see now what that was. I wish I could thank you for it, Mom. It was your last gift to me. I wouldn't trade those 37 days for anything in the world.
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