Confessions in Grief

A few months ago, a friend’s mother transitioned and at the celebration of life, her sister made sure to give the people a word or three about showing up. How it’s easy to reminisce on their mother at a surface level for her fabulous style and the way she was always there for them without having shown up for their mom when things got hard and real. I felt exposed. I never went to the hospital to see their mom. I wanted to, but I didn’t feel comfortable just showing up. At least that’s what I told myself. I’m so protective of my own space and I try to honor the space of others as much as possible. I used to be a bulldozer and just barrel in, out and around people so I tend to do the exact opposite now to counteract those old ways. If I peel back a layer or six, maybe I just didn’t feel comfortable being face to face with a dying mother.

I know death is inevitable. In this Covid 19 world we currently exist in from home, it feels like death is all we hear of. Very recently my father, who has a number of health issues, started to show symptoms that were of concern. I was scared and frustrated that I couldn’t physically be with him. I brace myself, with a small but potent dose of fear, for when my father’s time comes. In preparation for that moment I try to be the ultimate daughter, to make sure he leaves this earth having had a full life. This is a bit self-serving. Mainly, I do this because he’s an amazing dad and deserves the world. Though there’s a part of me that treats my father this way to satisfy the guilt of not having been that for my mother. For the ways in which I was selfish and stupid to both her and my father during her illness. To be the things for him I was to scared, to young, to dumb to be for her.

Maybe you look back on your life and have no regrets. For you there are no small moments that, possibly you would have done something different but it is what is. That is not my truth. There’s one moment, supremely significant to me, that will forever haunt me.

My senior year of college I was home for the holidays when my mother had a seizure in my arms on New Year’s Eve. We rushed her to the hospital for treatment. I had plans that night to hang with my boyfriend, who for the record everyone hated. I was a mess and we were overdue for a breakup. I couldn’t handle being in the hospital so I ran. Ran into the arms of the boyfriend everyone hated who spent most of the night complaining that I was late to meet him (uh because my mom is in the hospital) and left my father alone. It’s the one thing I look back on time and time again with sorrow. I will forever be sorry. Less than 3 months later my mom passed away. The boyfriend did not last much longer.

Since then, I have tried to show up for people in a real way, but I couldn’t make it to that hospital. I knew the trigger would be walking into those hospital doors. No one prepares you for when the parent becomes the child. They don’t prepare you for losing a parent. You aren’t ready for that hole in your heart. A temporary fix, for me, was to place a thin piece of fabric over that hole, stitched together by my other mothers who loved me the best way they knew how. It’s not the same but it works. No one prepares you for when they begin to die too.

Once their mom transitioned I was there. Literally moments later. I swallowed my grief, I never cried (and I cry at jingle bells) and I showed up. I planned family dinners, I hung out at the house and I did the things to make sure they were OK.

When it was all over and the life had been celebrated, I sat in my car and cried. HARD. I cried for the parents we have lost, for the parents we will lose one day and for the children who are left behind to figure it all out.

“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.” ― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Author: Raynette + Joseph’s Child