Believing
Almost a month has passed, and it still hasn't hit me that Mom is gone. I nearly wept once, on the phone when her youngest sister called from Nova Scotia, but no, and it hasn't happened yet. Maybe I should listen to one of those songs that habitually release me, but at this moment I can't remember what they are. Beautiful music can bring catharsis, but it has to jump out of a radio and surprise me. I had one miserable, anxious week, but otherwise my moods just feel like the usual coming and going.
It still amazes me that I stopped here to write about her that night. I must have sat down to do so practically the moment she departed this world, and finished the post in the time it took Dad to gather his wits to call me.
Aunt Nancy said that, while standing outside that evening, she asked, "Donna, if you're out there, please give me a sign." At which moment, the doorbell began ringing, with no one there. Five minutes later it started ringing again, and Nancy thought, "That must be Gayle. I better go see what she wants." Gayle was another sister, second of the six siblings, who more or less ran the family until she died 20 years ago.
Also there was the mysterious energy, like a piece of Mom's spirit, that possessed me for a while, but that has faded, and now I feel like nothing has changed.
The organ we have been building since last Easter is nearly complete. A week Sunday there will be an inaugural concert. Danny and Dad plan to attend. One day when we had finished voicing and tuning another rank of pipes, Les played a lovely flourish, and it nearly got to me with the thought that Mom would not be there to hear it.
I mentioned this to Les, then added, "But that's a silly thing to be sad about. If Mom were still here, neither of my parents would be able to come."
Les replied, "But who's to say she won't be here? That's the thing: it's all in your head."
All in my head. That's the problem. We make what sense we can. We interpret things the way we do in order to get through it all. It's nice to think I had a special bond with Mom, that I felt the migration of her spirit on some unconscious level, and it prompted me to start writing farewell before I knew. People have placed great meaning in these things since forever, because they can't bear to contemplate the end of consciousness. I am caught among what I believe, what I would enjoy believing, and what others insist is true in order to ease their own fears or derive meaning from their own experiences.
Metaphor remains alive. I like the symbol of a fine silver thread that remains, connecting me to her. I am connected to her memory. If there is more, I cannot know.
The moon must be full again tomorrow night. Perhaps these rainclouds will clear so I can see it, back where it was.