I'm Happy and It's Freaking Me Out.
My birthday! LA! 4 Diary Entries. Scattering Her Ashes. Functional Freeze. Flying. Dreams. Strep. Forced Rest. The golden question: What if you die?
4 Days In The Life
Jan 22 - I’m happy today, and it’s freaking me out.
Some people say they feel guilty for experiencing joy after they lose a loved one. Not me. My mom wanted me to be happy. One night she said, “I wish we could figure out what’s going to happen so you can just get on with your life.” And I said. “Mom, you are my life. This is our life.”
She is with me. So much so that I felt free to put away the rotating photo thingy of all these moments my mom was there for, and all the moments she missed.
I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I’m completely fine, happy, energetic and even ecstatic, for no apparent reason other than I’m alive and it’s sunny. Maybe it’s hormones. (It’s definitely hormones.) But I need to understand it, intellectualize it! I’m reminded of the time my acupuncturist prescribed milk and gin for my insomnia. I asked how it works. She laughed. “You Westerners always need to know everything.”
I haven’t slept for two nights and I’m not tired. I feel great. I have natural, clear energy. I am, honestly, so…hopeful, clear, alive. Happy. I can barely find synonyms for goodness, it feels so cheesy. I’m used to investigating the dark.
Why am I feeling ecstatic as I swim with my kids in the pool on a Sunday afternoon? Perhaps because I love swimming and I love my kids and my mom loved swimming?
Maybe it’s because I feel better after an intense 4 days of strep throat. I am so grateful for the forced rest illness gives me. I let myself be sick, very aware that my body’s defenses are low given this grief. I slept all day next to Seylah as she read books and drifted in and out of sleep on me, curled up, watching Stillwater, his voice lulling us into a meditative state. I said, “I really liked being with you today in bed, Sey.” She said, “I really liked that too.” My heart.
Perhaps I’m happy because this is what it feels like to let my husband love me. The challenge of my lifetime is to receive support and love, and believe him when he says I’m beautiful. Instead of being angry that I am aging, today I’m glad I am aging well.
This happiness could be that my dad is currently on an airplane coming to see us for a quick trip (I made him come, but he’ll be so glad he did!), and I’m picking him up at the airport with his two suitcases, one full of Christmas gifts for the girls.
This is his first time being in charge of Christmas gifts. That was always my mom’s job, and joy. We are figuring out how to be a family and move with her as an ancestor now. Not move on from her.
Pay attention to your dreams!
My mom was finally in my dreams as herself and not a ghost! She was smiling and radiant in her favorite blue summer dress, the one she wore to the pool and beach with us. I was at peace knowing she could just be around and talk and hang out, and if I’m the only one who sees her, fine. She appeared in this beautiful, stucco light-filled, spacious room with two beds opposite each other. So much space. It was so clean. Fresh flowers. We were not fighting. She wasn’t anxious. She was puttering in her dress and sandals. She was not sick. She was at peace. I heard her voice but wish I could remember the words. My mom was with me in my dreams.
Maybe this is why I feel some peace? Maybe it was the NyQuil? Maybe it’s not my business.
Also. I did pluck a fantastic chin hair after days of failed attempts. Joy!
Jan 23 - But what if you die?
We took a day off school to scatter my mom’s ashes today with Pa. I have 8 mini urns and we took 2 to the river. One for the kids and one for the grown ups. We’ll continue to release her ashes in beautiful waters and woods she loved. I made this decision without consulting with anyone. It felt right so we went for it. My dad was grateful. It was beautiful.
And. I realize now that I should have done more to prepare the girls. When we scattered the ashes Nya said, “Oh no, now she’s gone forever!” And I explained how she’s part of the earth, her body is gone but she’s always with us. Nya didn’t buy it.
It’s impossible to gently explain the burning of the body to a young child. It’s harsh no matter how you slice it. As she went down the river, my dad said, “Bye, darlin” and I cried and said goodbye. Nya asked why I was crying. I said, “because I miss my mom.” Seylah asked when we could have that donut in Grammy’s honor.
That night after bedtime books, right before I closed the door, Nya asked, “Mommy. What if you die?”
The golden question.
What I said first: “Oh honey. Mommy is super healthy and strong and I’m going to live for a long, long time. I’m gonna be really old.”
This didn’t work. I tried again: “No matter what, if anything happens to mommy, there are plans in place to make sure you’re always safe and taken care of. You have Jaja and Pa and godmothers and godfathers and so many people who love you. You will be taken care of and loved.”
She wasn’t impressed. What I said next (take 3!):
“Mommy’s body could go away but I will always be with you. Here (in you heart) and in your memories and dreams and inside your body, because part of you is part of me. I will always be your mother and I will always talk to you and you can always talk to me no matter where I am.”
This seemed to stick. Then she asked, “What if I die?”
Ugh. I honestly don’t remember what I said. Pretty sure I said she is only 5 years old, it won’t happen for a long, long time. That she is safe and it’s our job to keep her safe and healthy and happy and alive. I scratched her arm slowly with one finger just like she likes (“her heaven!”) and she let herself fall asleep.
What I wrote in bed in the middle of the night that I cannot remember writing:
“After I die there will be nights so many nights wailing inside as you can’t sleep and inside your dreams the same wailing so no rest. And funny things will happen beautiful things will happen great things will happen and you’ll want to call me and tell me things the way I wanted to call my mom to tell her things because she was she is the person we tell these things to due to her innate ability to both support and gossip and commiserate and uplift all at the same time. But you can’t. Yes she’s on speed dial yes she’s your “I.C.E” in your phone but she won’t answer and there are weird devil AI people who will try to turn your grief into a problem that can be solved with apps and you could text her number and an AI robot will respond but it won’t be her and it won’t be me I will never speak out of this body again once I’m gone but I will speak to you in your dreams and I will never forget you.”
What I want to say to Nya now: Everything you love will change and everyone you love will die and you will die.
I won’t tell her: I googled “Can I die from crying?”
Jan 30th - Functional Freeze
Every time I check the weather I think of my mom. My mom loved the weather because she couldn’t control or change it? So she could enjoy it? I realized the word “current” is a weather term, a time term…an emotional term.
My friend who recently lost her father to cancer just texted that her “functional freeze” is thawing and she’s feeling everything now. Ditto. I texted her back:
“I've been so "productive" but last night right when you sent this I had a little panic attack on the couch. The girls need so much and touch my face and hit me by accident and scream and I just was like ok. I can't do this. But then they picked a book for bedtime that my mom gave them. The Hug That Got Stuck. And the hug had so many sticky worry thoughts that it got stuck and couldn't reach the heart it was intended for until it stopped pushing against the hard feelings. I held them and I just love how they always somehow know. My mom works through them. I am so emotional. I can barely stop crying this week. Just finished my last hospice bereavement class and we were all crying. Of course I'm sending a doodle poll for us to keep a monthly coffee date together. My elder friends, I just adore them. Today was my turn to share about my mom. Brought her photos and candies and bubble water and talked about her. I'm having a very big upsurge of grief and I'm trying to be with it but it knocks me out. I need lots of naps.”
Today. Jan 31st - Flying, Birthdays and Sick Husbands
I fly to LA tomorrow morning and I hope the door doesn’t fall off the plane. My fear of flying has not subsided and I feel deep shame and embarrassment around this, and even more about maybe taking a half a Xanax to help me get where I’m going. I also feel that this anxiety is a place where my mom dwells inside me, and maybe that’s not all bad. Emotional inheritance is so real. And I do have a lot to lose. I am attached, connected and embedded in life and I don’t want to die. My worst fear is leaving my children behind. Maybe I feel left behind.
I met a woman on my trip to NY last year who kindly distracted me with chit chat during turbulence. She admitted she had to completely sedate herself to fly when she had little kids. But now, as a retiree, she can sleep on the plane. It’s hormonal, it’s a stage, it’s a phase.
I am tired of pretending like I just want to be alone crying in the hot springs every birthday. I miss my friends. I miss community. I miss the ocean. I miss warmth. I miss my mom. This is my first birthday without her, and I can’t even imagine what that’s bringing up. But it’s all up. And as my aunt says, grief is unimaginable without community. So I will fly to LA to be with my peeps.
And. My husband is sick. He has strep throat. Again. We just finished our antibiotics, and now he has it again. So we will all go get tested today. Again. Urgent care takes forever. I don’t know how anyone does anything.
Something I haven’t even been able to process: my godmother had a bad fall the night before my mom’s service, rendering her unable to communicate. She was the one I leaned on. She was my person. Is my person. And now she’s the one who needs the support. And I can’t be there for her the way I want to be. It breaks my heart.
This is the season of life. Forced to grow up and be the grown up before you were parented the way you needed to be, the way you imagined, the way you hope you’re now parenting your children.
And I hired a house cleaner, and ahhhh, it was miraculously clean. I relaxed and relished in the clarity, until I realized they broke the blender. And the back screen door, which is now stuck wide open until someone fixes it…
Ok! That’s me today.
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Thank you ALL for being here with me. This human connection is life giving.
Love and boom,
B
For fun - the girls dressed up as Mommy this week. Apparently I only go to yoga and the store! :)