28. Spring

28

It is nearly 2 months since my Mum died. I thought I would get over it, but I haven’t. This is not a plea for sympathy, I’m fine, life is good. This is just an observation, a report. Firstly, I miss her, we all do, but that is obvious. I knew one day she would go, one day I would have to deal with this...but I had no idea what to expect.

I guessed though, that the experience would not differ from other violent emotional traumas: first the shock, then a blank aftershock, then the busy period, the pain, disbelief, that constant ache, displacement activity, then perhaps a relapsing into grief. And after that and over many years to come, a slow but steady process of what sensitive people might call ‘healing’ and the rest of us would call getting over it.

Here I am living a few weeks of false-normality. Still numb, but with arrangements of a practical nature to busy myself with. I have had too much to do to mope around. The bungalow clearance seems to be pretty much down to me, I have had help on maybe 10 occasions, which is greatly appreciated. It is hard work, and my back has been killing me, but I plodded on...for Mum.

There’s plenty to fill close relatives days when somebody dies, and hardly time to miss my Mum. Maybe we somehow put it to the back of our minds and just get on with life, forgetting that a quick call or text just might mean the world to someone? I knew that we would all come together to help each other over the initial days of pain and grief... but I also knew that we would very soon just get on with things, go our separate ways, and not bother with each other too much.

The waters had closed over my Mums head and the ripples subsided. I missed her, of course, but from now on, with each day that passed, I would surely miss her a little less. Time heals all wounds, etc. So now, I thought, begins that famous healing process.

I thought wrong. I wake up in the night, missing her. The endless questions... Should I have called the ambulance, could I have called sooner, was there anything more I could have done for my Mum, Should I have organised to take her to the sea side, or out for an evening, was I able to spend more time with her, do more for her, help her more, visited more, called or text more often.... I never told her that I loved her!

I now begin fully to understand, with an intensity that grows, that the world had changed when she died, that there was still a big gap where she had been, and that it was not closing over.

And now, 8 weeks later, I see clearly that it never will. Now never a week passes, or a single day when I do not remember her, see a cloud, flower, star, sunshine, child, dog...anything and everything seems to remind me so much of Mum.  Not only in the night now, but during the day, even at busy times, and at happy times, she enters my imagination, a welcome guest.

Quite simply, she has left a space that will never be filled, therefore she is [paradoxically], still here because the space is still here, and I can feel it all the time. The gap Mum left is not a vacuum, a void, a soft area of low pressure to be filled. The gap is hard-edged, chiselled by her into my life, measured by her worth, and ineradicable. It is a gap that contains memories that I thought I had forgotten.

With this realisation has come another- that this sorrow is not itself a cause for sorrow. Regret is not a cause for regret. We ought to be sorry. We ought to regret. Death is not a ‘wound’ to be ‘healed’ or a ‘scar’ to ‘fade’. Once someone has been in the world, they have always been in the world, and once they have gone their absence will be in the world forever, part of the world, in Mums case part of mine. This is a good thing.

How stupid then, is all this talk of ‘getting over’ death. How empty, how wrong-headed the exhortations we make to those who love us that they should try not to miss us when we’re gone. Why not? You do miss someone you love, don’t you, when they’re gone? How self-negating is the wish that others should not feel sad when they remember us. Of course they should feel sad! They can’t talk to us any more.

It is right that we make an imprint on the minds and lives of others, right that we should be needed while still alive; and therefore right that the imprint remains and the loss hurts, and continues hurting.

So I’ve decided that I don’t want to ‘come to terms’ with Mums death. It’s fucking horrible that she isn’t here. It still cuts me up, and this is a fact of love. I’m perfectly capable of keeping things in proportion, as Mum always did, but I don’t want to ‘get things into perspective’, if by that one means wanting them to grow smaller. It’s a fact, her life is a fact, the gap now is a fact, it’s not getting any smaller... I’m sad, but I’m happy that I’m sad.

This makes us think of our own mortality. Will people think the same questions that I am thinking, when it is my time to shuffle off to the next life? Will they ask if they could have done more...or will they watch my videos and read my blogs, and hear my plea to them to keep in touch? Will they feel guilty, will they try to remember the last time they called or text me?

I remember so much about my Mum. Her last ever spoken word to me was "Thankyou". Her last text to me said 'Very poorly at mo xxx'. Her last card said Thankyou for all you do.
AND ALL THAT BREAKS MY FUCKING HEART.

Even in happy times, it seems to be tinged with a touch of sadness. When I complete a piece of art, I want to show it to my Mum, when I stop and soak up a glorious view, I want to show that to Mum. I want to talk to her, to see her, to smell her, to be with her....

I didn't deserve a Mum like you, and am now full of regrets that I should of and could have done more, to make your life easier.... I love you Mum, I will always love you, and in time as the family fades away... I will still have you. My special, wonderful and inspirational Mum. I feel so blessed that you were my Mum... But I sometimes feel angry, bitter, confused, lonely, desperately sad and often simply numb. Life hurts.

But, I know that it is OK to feel all those things and more. You were in my life through every single breath I ever took, every heart beat and blink of my eyes- I have the right to feel whatever feelings come my way, they are MY feelings.

I hear the well meaning comments of 'she is at peace now' and 'no more pain', or 'she is always with you' etc. But I question whether those left behind will find some peace and feel the pain less....
Obviously death is all part of the cycle, we know that. No one can live forever, but if I had just one wish right now...

ThankYOU Mum -x-x-x