This site started as a sight for my mother when she passed away. It used to get a lot of hits so I thought I’d update the status on that.
Letting go of the loss of such a HUGE part of my life (my Mom) was and is so on my heart still. My beliefs are not “mainstream” and my personality certainly isn’t either. I didn’t really know her at all until around 1993. I only had 17 years with her which seemed very wrong and still does.
In the process of cleaning out her things, finding notes she wrote, remembering and re-reading emails, cards etc… A paradigm shift happened.
I seem to be finding an incredible amount of PEACE doing what I was and am doing.
I am sure there is some developmental or behavioral health theory that relates to it all – defines it. But all I can tell you is that it is working for me.
At 1st I was afraid that what she taught us and every person she met would be lost. Her memories that she hadn’t yet shared with her grandchildren, who are no where near an age that they even want to know much less CARE.
(Lets face it here, and I have been told this at work and by many younger friends: and I quote “You and your parents screwed up this world, why in the world do we want to KNOW or listen to you now!???” Sad but a reality in the year 2012. I got sort of tickled at a quote in an email a while back here it is)
Then I felt like I needed to fill her shoes as the family fell apart at the seams. Then about 4 months ago (1 year anniversary), I thought I would die myself from the grief of that month. Then, even so slowly, things started to shift.
“The world is too big for us, too much is going on, too many crimes, too
much violence and excitement. Try as you will, you get behind in the race
in spite of yourself. It’s a constant strain to keep pace. . . and still, you lose ground. Science empties its discoveries on you so fast that you
stagger beneath them in hopeless bewilderment. The political world is
news seen rapidly, you’re out of breath trying to keep pace with who’s in
and who’s out. Everything is high pressure. Human nature can’t endure
much more.
Atlantic Journal
June 16, 1883
Dave S
Now probably 1/2 the caaa-rap, that I get in emails is NOT real. I don’t KNOW that that was actually written in 1883 and really don’t have time to check it out BUT…
What a thought…. I recall my Mom talking like that, my grandparents….And I have CERTAINLY said “what’s the world coming to1?” more than a few times in the last 10 years not to mention in the last 19 months without her here to talk to!
Well.
After the initial year of overwhelming regret and temper tantrums about her “leaving me” (geeze, it sure is self-fish when you look at it). I rounded the corner with something like excitement, no it is and was excitement. She left me with mountains of information to record and research and put together. Mountains of more human experiences.
The outer stuff is more definitive….like….
My daughter ACTUALLY mentioned my impending demise. (No I’m not dieing that I know of) but THAT was a 1st ever and it happened a few days ago. I explained that I was writing as much and as often as I could about Mom…. That I wouldn’t leave her with questions about stuff if I could help it. I told her that if I don’t get it finished I would like her to continue. She wasn’t upset but happy and laughing that I was doing all this genealogy, family stories and pictures. She was thrilled we were able to get Mimi’s antiques, out of the “one that shall not be named” house, and that there are notes on them from MiMi and that I would do the same. She’s pushing 30 now. She looks at her daughter the way I look at her and the way that my mother looked at me….the way HER mother looked at her and Grandmother May looked at her daughters. The connection goes deep in this family
Have I let go of her? No I don’t think so. I don’t think I have at all. Folks kept screaming that I needed to LET GO. And I would scream NO NEVER!
Still haven’t. Going on with my life like I do when I loose a patient well…That just didn’t and doesn’t set right with me somehow. Each death that I helped someone go through (save one) has been peaceful for me. The love of the universe has another plan for them and it was okay and I was glad to be with them during those last moments.
That one died on my watch on MY birthday. I was not at her side. She had NO family of any kind and I have always thought that i failed her in some way. She was a kindly lady of 93. She died in her sleep alone and it still makes me sad, so I remember her just because SOMEBODY needs to! Maybe that’s why I feel that way about Mom. I just don’t know. What I do know is that the grief from October 2010 has morphed into a relationship with her memory. Interests and a joy at discovering those things deep inside me that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt SHE GAVE ME.
What I have done is hold her quite literally MORE dearly and closely in my heart and mind. I am old enough to realize that “Hero-izing” her is not very mature. I hate it when folks do that with ANY body’s memory. Mom was not a GOD. She was human with quirks and variations of the human “assets and limitations”. She was PERFECT just how she was made, warts and all. The way she could laugh about it all was unique and is so precious to me now. So how is it going now???
Well like this morning.. I felt that horrid awful hole in space and my heart soul and life. At 1st I thought “oh-God I’m depressed,”, then “Bull honkie honey you’ve felt this before remember…it’s the Mimi size hole?”
and then I think…”Hmmm, not that again, is it going to take me down again…
“No, not today, just for today ” Thanks Mom…
Then comes…
“Okay what am I going to do today to honor her?”
Somehow I am letting go more of my daughter, letting her make her own mistakes without getting hysterical. There is this knowing that she will always be with me as I am always with my mother and she with me. And I find Peace, maybe not joy, but at least peace.
ladyirisjean 