Today marks one year since losing my mom. It’s been both the longest and shortest year, during which I learned a hell of a lot more about grief than I ever wanted to.
Probably the most glaring lesson is that the process of grief has no process at all. It is random and painful. It is agonizing, exhausting, and also joyful. It can be coldly cruel and lonely one minute and then provide a warm hug of relief the next. It is a gentle trickle that feels manageable until that trickle shapeshifts into a tsunami with no warning.
As someone who prefers life to conduct itself predictably, learning to just “let grief happen” seemed like an impossible mountain to tackle. In the early days and weeks and months, I was quite proud of myself for absolutely nailing the grieving process. Surely, if there were a trophy for grieving the best, I would be receiving it.
There was no trophy. It turns out, grief is not competitive – another punch to the gut for someone who thrives on delivering success through any and all challenges.
Grief looked at my need to control everything and tossed that need straight through a wood chipper.
It took me nearly nine months to truly break down. Sure, there were tears and sadness here or there but that debilitating wave stayed far from shore with nary a hint of its ramp up. I was, after all, nailing the grieving process. There was no way the tsunami would stop here.
The tsunami stopped here. It followed a different, friendlier wave: relief.
While visiting my dad, eight months after Mom died, a sense of calm came over me. I was sitting in his living room, in Mom’s chair, and out of nowhere, I just knew that my dad was going to be okay. He was adjusting to his new normal — a normal that didn’t include the stress of daily visits to a nursing home where his wife of sixty years was being pulled further and further away by the demon that is dementia.
When I returned home from that visit, the floodgates opened, the bottom dropped out, and the tsunami reared up and flattened me. “Oh,” I thought, “Maybe I hadn’t been nailing grief at all. Maybe I hadn’t even dipped a toe in, yet.”
My husband says I’ve softened over the last year. I think so, too. He lost his mother six months before I lost mine and “soft” was about the only thing I could manage. “Soft” is not a word many think of, when they think of me. Or maybe, now, they do. I’m not sure “soft” was a good thing as it was born out of simply not caring about all the things that had seemed so important before we started down this potholed path.
The big things just weren’t big things anymore.
I couldn’t write. That was one of the things that should have been a big thing, but I didn’t really care. I couldn’t write. Pages sat blank or with words that I didn’t remember typing, or that didn’t really make any sense. It seems so obvious now, of course. My mom has cheered me on, as a writer, for as far back as I can remember. Without her here, offering encouragement or editorial advice or even the occasional, “I didn’t like that article,” I just wasn’t interested in writing at all.
A year ago, I was mapping out a third book, but then…well, what was the point?
I was writing, though, in a different form and at the suggestion of my grief counselor. I wasn’t writing a book or even a very good blog, but I was writing letters to my mom. I wrote to her so often that I eventually felt like those letters replaced our daily phone calls. Yes, I could still tell Mom about my day, or what the kids were up to or why my husband was the best person on the entire planet. I could tell her how Dad was doing and how he started going out again, or that he was frequenting their favorite Mexican restaurant, now solo.
I could tell her how much I missed her. I could tell her why this wasn’t working for me, being alive and on this planet when she was not. I could tell her anything.
I could tell her that the process of grief is not a process at all and that she should have warned me to be ready for anything while anticipating nothing. I could tell her how much those letters were helping me and how, some days, they were the only thing keeping me going.
I could tell her that it’s already been a year since she died, and that it’s been both the longest and shortest year, during which I learned a hell of a lot more about grief than I ever wanted to.
I could tell her that, sometimes, people now use the word “soft” to describe me, knowing that she wouldn’t believe me and that she’d probably laugh her urn right off its shelf. Still, I could tell her.
Late last fall, while staring at those blank pages for book three, I realized that book three was going to be a complete change of direction for me, as an author. While my typical focus is on the humor found in everyday life, book three, it turns out, will focus on grief and how those letters to my mom became so essential to the process that has no process. While I’d love to offer a publication date, I have softened…and with that softening has also come patience with myself. Still, it’s coming.