Mum’s death still hurts so much. It has now been eleven weeks since she died, suddenly and unexpectedly. We were not prepared.
I have been busying myself with a to-do list at her house. There’s a long enough to-do list at our own home and yet somehow I feel more productive at mum’s, perhaps as I distract myself from having to face up to the day to day and my responsibilities here, in a new season: without her.
At home I have been feeling largely demotivated: struggling with simple things, unable to spark any enthusiasm or inspiration as to how to engage with the children and provide for them beyond their basic needs. If they have eaten, that’s a good day; three meals and I’ve aced it! My husband, as always, has been much better in this regard and covers my many gaps so graciously and with such compassion.
Somehow when I’m at mum’s house, rather than feel her loss, I feel close to her and somehow enabled, empowered even. When she was alive, my visits nearly always involved fitting in one or half a dozen DIY jobs that needed doing; perhaps when I do these things now, I feel as though I am doing them for her? Possibly.
Yes, her loss is felt more acutely back here at home, in the ‘real world’, where life has to go on without her; where I cannot pick up the phone and speak to her when I am feeling down or stressed; where I am living with the irony that the one person I really want to speak to about losing mum, is mum.
Every once in a while the fear creeps in with the question: am I going to be okay?
I had come off antidepressants at the end of January and had been in perhaps the most consistent place I had been in for a very long time; probably since prior to becoming ill back in 2009 when I stopped my NQT year, shortly after my husband and I were married.
Since then, I have been up, down, up, down; and only recently – since embarking on therapy for the first time in December 2018 and finally uncovering and dealing with age-old trauma and pain, surrounding my dad’s death when I was seven – had I found myself in some kind of steady place. I think I was probably even gearing up to winding things down with my therapist to be honest! And coming off medication had been such a satisfactory and affirming milestone.
And now… Now the down days threaten to bring a feeling of dread and overwhelm, a fear of failure. Questions come to mind, such as: Will I be enough as a mother? Will I be present for my children? Am I able to adequately share the load with my husband, so as not to overload him? Will I be able to hold it together when I am back at work in two weeks?
And then some days are okay. A little more buoyant. I bob along and get through and don’t sink. But neither do I really feel. And as with the expression, ‘water off a duck’s back’, I feel somewhat unaffected. I become aware that things are largely rolling off me; my emotions not fully caught up with my present reality, my response to mum’s death still not having been properly formulated – or felt.
I don’t want to bury. I don’t want to avoid. I don’t want to skirt around, to stuff down and to hide. I did that when dad died and it was disabling. I am thankful to have unearthed and shed light on that inner pain in recent years, which had lay buried like a coffin inside me. Not any more. I can’t do that again. I mustn’t.
I must travel through; allow myself to feel what I need to feel, “trust the process” (I have heard some say?); know that there will be an other side to this. There will be somewhere else to arrive, somewhere new. It will not be like the old: it can’t be. It will not be entirely without sadness; will not try to deny the pain of loss. But the sadness will not define this new place. We will learn life anew and walk to an altered beat, a new rhythm.
Perhaps my brothers, my sister and I will find each other in this place, move towards it. Perhaps our own steps and singular notes will merge to form something harmonious and rhythmic and more ‘in tune’ with each other than we have been before: because of the loss.
About four weeks after mum died I came across this Lilias Trotter quote, which really meant something to me at the time and spoke to me:
“All the more beautiful will be God’s triumph when it comes. The highest music is not the music where all goes on simple and straight and sweet, but where discord suddenly resolves tensions with harmony.” 12 February 1905
I wondered whether that might be true for my family. And hoped – and hope – that it may be so.
~
Mum, I really miss you. My heart hurts. I love you so much. I always, always have; and, even after your death, I always, always will.xx
florencejoy 