Sunday, November 16, 2008

Why I'm Here

I'm a 28--almost 29 in February--single mother of a sweet 4 year old daughter with unruly red curly hair. My mother died from cancer last May and I'm learning how to live my life without her; although I'm constantly reminded of her when I look at my pale and blue, veiny hands. They look like hers. The same hands that prepared food for us, brushed our tangled hair, checked our soft foreheads for fever, and held our hands when we sat on the thin, papered doctor's beds to get shots. I miss her every day. One of my favorite writer's was right when she described grieving the loss of a loved one. Abigail Thomas in her book called, Thinking of Memoir, wrote this about dealing with the death of her husband, "Sadness, yes, I was prepared for that, but not the kind of grief that clobbers you, the kind that ambushes you when you're walking down the tea-and-coffee aisle at the market." This is what grief does to a person. It comes and goes like the Iowa snow in January. It hit me the other day when I opened my coat closet on a chilly fall evening and found my mauve stocking hat. My mother gave me that stocking hat last winter--her last winter--and I stood in my new apartment, smelling my hat and was ambushed by such a strong feeling of loss, and melancholy that my knees gave out and I fell to the floor. I've never cried that hard before. The tears came from deep inside and my chest hurt. I walked into my bedroom and set the smooth black box with the photo of us girls on top, on the floor. My mother's cremains are in this box. I held the box and lay on the floor, my head warm and achy from the tears. When I settled down, which came as quickly and unexpectedly as the hysteria, I placed the box back on the shelf under my nightstand. The cremains sounded like tiny pebbles sliding around the bottom of the box. That's what I'm left with of my mother's physical being--bone fragments, gritty and resting in a sealed box that my sister bought at Hobby Lobby. Anger. It's a familiar friend of mine these days! It comes and goes just like the sadness and hysteria. This is why I started a blog. Not because I want to post drunken photos of my friends, or proudly post the skinned knees and cute happenings of my four year old. I’m here in this moment to work through the emotions of loss, although I will write of other topics as well. I hope for this to be therapeutic, as cliché as that sounds and perhaps help others that have watched a love one die from a terminal illness. Life is complicated and sad at times. As Joan Didion writes in her memoir of loss, entitled The Year of Magical Thinking,
Life changes fast.
Life changes in the instant.
You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.
The question of self-pity(3).


Truly,
MK

2 comments:

Mudge said...

i'm so glad you started this. i think you will find it helpful to put into words how you are feeling. my heart aches for you, it would never be an easy time to lose one's mother. i can't even imagine. keep your head up and remember that haley will get a taste of her every day, because we all become our mother sooner or later...and that's not all bad!!
love and hugs, mz

Ivy said...

I'm glad I am reading your blog. I feel close to your feelings on loss. I haven't lost my mother but she is struggling with cancer again after a 4 week remission...if it can be called that.
I don't want to even think about losing her. I go into hysterics and feel ill. I am better if I don't think about that.
Currently, there is still a lot of hope. I am gripping it tightly.
XO~Ivy