Figment of My Cogitation

In 9 months’ time, a couple of microscopic cells can turn into a breathing human being. Nine months is the length of an academic year, moving you from one level of learning to the next. It seems like you can really accomplish some things in that amount of time, and this is what I’m thinking about as I mark 9 months since my mother’s death. When I look back at my first post here, written in March when the grief was still so raw, I know I’ve made progress. No completion (whatever that looks like in grieving), but progress.

Because I’m a person who tends to notice what’s missing first, I’ll start this update there. At 9 months, I’m still waiting for the Big Cry and am starting to believe it’s never going to come. Mom’s absence certainly warrants a huge emotional catharsis, and it’s not like I’m holding it in. It just won’t happen, and it’s pissing me off. I keep thinking if something could just push me into a really Big Cry, I could move through this grieving process more efficiently — you know, get a little closer to the end of it. But no, there is no crying.

And most days, I still feel pretty weird. Not sad, angry, or disoriented anymore — but still at loose ends. One of my friends worked up my astrological chart and described this phase I’m in as “total annihilation,” which seems a tad melodramatic and completely accurate all at the same time. My identity is in meltdown. No mom to care for, no kids at home. Just lots of empty space in a life that just a year ago was frequently demanding, sometimes exhausting, and looked like it would continue that way for several more years. Some days, I feel freer than I ever have. Other times, it seems like I’ll never do anything again that’s as important as the job I just lost.

On the up side, I’m able to remember the Real Mom now, the one I had until dementia started to steal her personality in those last few years. The beauty of this stage is that I can reclaim the versions of my mother I loved best and discard the parts that were difficult. Sometimes I get the memories from a particular scent, but lately, they’re musically induced. A few weeks ago, I heard this song on a movie soundtrack, and suddenly I could picture my mother singing it at the piano. It’s from the musical Guys & Dolls, but when I was little, I was sure it was a song she’d made up just for me.

Mom at the piano, Aunt Lou and me, 1967

Then there’s this one, which puts me back into the store in Vermont where Mom bought me a Betty Crocker Boys and Girls Cookbook. The first recipe I made from it was marshmallow fudge, a concoction so sweet it makes my teeth hurt to think about it now, but that was my initiation into cooking and I still love new recipes 40 years later. After Mom died, I kept the wooden spoon from her kitchen that I used to stir that first batch of fudge.

Now I can remember proudly the Mom who was always well-dressed when we went out in public, even though she was often wearing her sisters’ hand-me-downs. Other kids’ mothers might go to the grocery store — or worse yet, show up at school — with a scarf wrapped around their spongey pink rollers, but not mine. I asked her once why she bothered, since Dad never seemed to notice how she looked at all.

She shrugged. “I don’t do it for anyone else,” she said. “I do it for myself.”

I’m definitely keeping that Mom, along with the one who was always on my side even when I made choices she couldn’t comprehend. Everything I know about being a kind, decent human being, I learned from her and I’m keeping that, as well.

And after years of feeling sad about the disappointments in my mother’s life, the ones I couldn’t change but always wanted to, I finally understand that my sadness serves no purpose. Mom’s already let go of everything that was painful for her here. I don’t know where, if anywhere, we go when we die. But I feel certain that wherever she is now, my mom is okay and I don’t need to hold onto unhappiness that she’s already  released. I wish I could convey what a huge relief this realization has been, but words fail.

At this juncture, I also see clearly how temporary life is, and it doesn’t scare me the way it used to. The husband I adore, the family I love, my dogs who are such great companions, the way I look and live in my 40s — none of it will last. You’d think coming to terms with this fact and holding it at the front of my awareness every day (instead of secured in a vault in the basement, where most people keep it) would bum me out. But it doesn’t. On the contrary, I feel grateful for the time I do have with the people who are still where I can reach them. It makes me want to call them, send flowers, go dancing, get on a plane to visit — say “yes” to more things – while I can. This was a gift my mother left me.

So this is where I am, nine months later. You can accomplish a lot in nine months — but most of the time, you won’t be done and neither am I. A newborn baby is not a finished human being, anymore than a teenager who has completed her first year of college is an educated one. Nine months isn’t the end of anything, even when it looks that way. It’s only the beginning of something else.