Those jarring moments, Mum’s really gone

There’s something about the lawn that must bring on these thoughts.  Thoughts of how Mum was here, and now for so long she’s been gone.  She was here so long, like all my life, and yet it feels so new still that she’s no longer here — it’s been seven weeks tomorrow.

It seems so weird that we, that is Mum and I, talked so often about when she would be gone.  We must’ve talked about it almost weekly for the last few years.  She was so comfortable talking about it.  And those conversations only feel like they were yesterday.

And yet, Mum’s been gone for nearly 50 days now!  And in some ways, it seems like a lot longer than that.  Time amid the grief cycle confuses things.  Time is so mathematical and yet perception shifts inordinately.

I think for many of us in the family, our grief seems to have taken on different dimensions even in the last week or two.  In some ways we may be getting more used to not having Mum around.  Yet in polar opposite terms, we may also miss her more than ever, because we know she isn’t coming back.

For someone like Mum, anyone who knew her really knew her.  She was such an accessible person.  This is why it doesn’t seem quite real that she’s no longer alive.  It seems more unfair when certain people perish.  Mum was one of those people, and forgive any bias, because she just was.

Mum giving her eldest grandchild, Amy, a ride c. 1993.

Mum was so full of life for others, she always seemed like a heavenly presence of peace in everyone’s life she shared.  Her and Dad were like a pigeon-pair.  Kindness and joy in Mum, gentleness and humility in Dad.

So there are those moments where it hardly seems real that Mum is gone, but she’s been gone for long enough that these moments of disconcerting perception really jar, but not in a painful way, far from it.  I have such peace that Mum fought the good fight, she ran a great race, she kept the faith.

I suppose all this is to be expected when you have a person in your life for 20, 30, 40, 50 or 60 years (as is the case for Dad).  Such a loss leaves you wondering about the wisdom in the saying, “The days are long, but the years are short.”

I think I’m thankful for these little wake up calls.  They remind me of Mum’s memory and that’s all that matters.  Such a wonderful person, mother, wife, and friend deserves to be remembered.

I think the other thing that needs to be said is that even though we talked about her death, I don’t think I really fully realised Mum would die, strange as that even sounds.  Life cannot prepare us for loss.  That’s what seems most unfair about it — it’s the grief that’s a non-negotiable part of it.

It’s little wonder that people sink into depression when they suffer loss.  There’s an inextricable non-optional component to it that makes it the harshest reality.  And yet, grief and loss are the ways that life grows us up.  It expands our perspective.  Three other people I know well, all around my age, lost a parent immediately before I did, and it really didn’t register with me in the way it does now.  Now, only now, do I really “get” each of these people.

These are just a mishmash of thoughts.  I like thinking about Mum.  Like with Nathanael, I find it doesn’t hurt, and isn’t painful, to talk about them.  I think it’s healing to remember.