These wheels keep turning, but they're running out of steam
Today, after spending a week getting progressively sicker and then two days sleeping all the time to recover from an upper respiratory infection, I got up early, then went to get lunch with a friend. We talked for a while and she gave me some stuff, then brought me home. After I got home, my dad got in touch with the funeral home and they said that we could pick up my mother's remains.
So we got in the car and went and got her and brought her home. I carried my mother in a my hands in a small white box. It made the loss suddenly so much more real. Now there's a death certificate and a certificate of cremation and all of these things have her name on them. Her name, and a very clinical cause of death, and all sorts of information that I am not really prepared to cope with. I went to Candice's house and talked about it and cried for a bit, and realized that now, it's really real. She's really gone. She's in a white box and there's a piece of paper telling me her date of birth and date of death that looks very official.
I've been telling people that I know it's going to be hard, but somehow I secretly thought that the worst was over. That I'd cried enough and was now moving ahead. Carrying that box in my hands was such a shock. It made the grief as bad as it was at the beginning and it made me realize that this really is only the beginning.
Someday, I will be able to think about that box and not cry. I'll be able to read the death certificate and talk about her and answer questions about it. I'll get married, maybe, and have kids, maybe, and there will always be a loss, a space where she belongs. I'll get older and have all kinds of new things happen that she won't be here with me for, but it will get easier, I know. Right now, though, it isn't easy. It's harder than anything I've ever gone through before. Right now, it's not fair. It's not fair and it's not right.
I don't want this blog to turn into a Chronicle of My Very Important Grief. I'll go back to writing about places I go and ordinary things I do. I'll probably talk about my mother some, but not pour out so much raw sadness at her loss anymore. Soon, I'll tell the story of how I went paragliding - it was just two weeks ago, though it feels like years between now and then. I'm usually not quite so public with how I really feel on the internet - once you put it out there, it's hard to get it back.
So we got in the car and went and got her and brought her home. I carried my mother in a my hands in a small white box. It made the loss suddenly so much more real. Now there's a death certificate and a certificate of cremation and all of these things have her name on them. Her name, and a very clinical cause of death, and all sorts of information that I am not really prepared to cope with. I went to Candice's house and talked about it and cried for a bit, and realized that now, it's really real. She's really gone. She's in a white box and there's a piece of paper telling me her date of birth and date of death that looks very official.
I've been telling people that I know it's going to be hard, but somehow I secretly thought that the worst was over. That I'd cried enough and was now moving ahead. Carrying that box in my hands was such a shock. It made the grief as bad as it was at the beginning and it made me realize that this really is only the beginning.
Someday, I will be able to think about that box and not cry. I'll be able to read the death certificate and talk about her and answer questions about it. I'll get married, maybe, and have kids, maybe, and there will always be a loss, a space where she belongs. I'll get older and have all kinds of new things happen that she won't be here with me for, but it will get easier, I know. Right now, though, it isn't easy. It's harder than anything I've ever gone through before. Right now, it's not fair. It's not fair and it's not right.
I don't want this blog to turn into a Chronicle of My Very Important Grief. I'll go back to writing about places I go and ordinary things I do. I'll probably talk about my mother some, but not pour out so much raw sadness at her loss anymore. Soon, I'll tell the story of how I went paragliding - it was just two weeks ago, though it feels like years between now and then. I'm usually not quite so public with how I really feel on the internet - once you put it out there, it's hard to get it back.