Waking Up a Survivor: One Year Later
Waking Up a Survivor: One Year Later
The deep pain that is felt at the death of every friendly soul arises from the feeling that there is in every individual something which is inexpressible, peculiar to him alone, and is, therefore, absolutely and irretrievably lost. -Arthur Schopenhauer
On September 4th, at 7am, it will have been exactly one year since my mother officially died.
I have no idea what time she died at or even what she died of, I just know that's when I was informed (okay, so it was seven am and x amount of minutes, but I was a bit in shock to figure that part out). As I sit here, a year out from that moment, I can still recall every bit of it as if it were still yesterday (though, shortly after the event I couldn't recall minute to minute, but thankfully, I'm told that's normal for shock and grief).
I would like to say I survived and everything’s getting better...but I'm not sure it is just yet. Somedays, it feels as if it's been five years since her death. Things have moved so fast and changed so much that it's getting harder to remember what it was like when she was here with me. Other days...the pain is so raw and so fresh that it could have happened just hours ago and I can do nothing more then break down and sob.
This has been a year of loss for me, not only my mother, but the loss of five family pets, my car, the family house, the gain, and again loss of my sister and father, friends (or those I thought were friends)...some moments I sit here, holding myself, praying desperately for nothing else to go away, because I just can't take it anymore. Each loss, no matter how small (I cried because I couldn't find a favorite book), take a piece away from me and I feel the holes every day.
But for all that loss, I have gained, I have family that once upon a time were just faded names in an address book, I have new friends, and I have new hopes. Most of all, I have a new future. It's a bright, shiny and utterly terrifying thing that I'm learning to take one day, one breath at a time before it consumes me...but as it is scary, it is also exhilarating.
And there has been change, the most notable of with that my Peter Pan syndrome has been forcibly ripped from me (despite my protests) and I've been forced to grow up. I've made mistakes, huge errors at times, but my learning curve has been steep and I keep trying. I'm not the same person I was, when mom was alive...and to be utterly frank and honest as is my wont, I LIKE myself more now, then I ever did with her. I'm not as angry and bitter, I'm not as broken (though some might disagree, considering), I'm not wallowing in a sea of desperation and depression, drowning in the all consuming being that is mum and her issues.
I'm alive, and I have to remember that with each breath I will keep going, keep moving...keep living.
Yet, for all the change, some things are ever the same and it's frustrating. The housing issue is still unsettled (though, every moment I remain in my home I'm grateful), I'm still drowning in debt and bills related to mum's life, I'm still stuck in the same moment and feel as if most days I'm treading molasses, trying to move forward while being held in-excapably back.
And yet, from all this...I would not change my situation. I would not ask for it to change, to go back, to return to that moment at 6.59am, when mum wasn't dead. It isn't that I don't miss her, I do, terribly. It isn't that at times I hate my life and what it has become, because I do, bitterly.
I wouldn't go back, because it would just prolong the pain, mark another date as That. Day. For all the horror, shock, grief, pain, oh my god I can't breath-can you just shut up I don't care moments...Each second of those was a desperate journey I had to go through, to reach the other side, to see the sunshine again. I'm not there yet, I'm only getting glimpses of brilliance through the forest of darkness, but each of those small rays is proof that I can get out of this, that I can see the sun again,
It's been a year since my mother died...and I can finally say that I'm going to be okay (I hope...)