My mother passed away on Friday. I don’t want to talk about any of those details in this Meal Train forum, other than to say that I was able to be there when it happened, as well as the days leading up to her passing. It was a privilege to get to participate in her care, to honor her and express my love in that way. There were incredibly hard as well as beautiful moments, but those are experiences and memories that I would not trade.
Throughout this I have felt like I’ve been under a microscope. Watched, scrutinized, analyzed, all the time. How will Suzanne in particular be able to handle this loss, in light of the other recent losses in her life? How will her children hold up? Or the flip side, with comments about how I’m so strong and have already navigated grief well (is that even possible?), implying I am somehow better equipped to be able to do so this time. Or must know how to help others through this.
There is some truth to that. There are aspects about all of this that feel much harder than I imagine they might have, going through it without Kenny. I now have the compounded grief of mourning him while also trying to grapple with the additional loss of losing the other person I am closest to, my biggest emotional support and not only my mother but my dearest friend. I also DO know more about what to expect when someone dies. I DO have some tools and knowledge that I didn’t have before losing Kenny. I have grown and learned a lot in the past fifteen months.
But I have never done this before. I don’t know what to expect, not really. I can’t predict what will be triggering or especially difficult, or when those waves of emotion will hit and completely flatten or immobilize me. And this time I don’t have my mom to lean on, to help me talk things through, to show up and act as a surrogate mother for my children when I am forced to be working or dealing with other necessary responsibilities. This feels like completely new territory, although there is the part of me that is preemptively tensing knowing just how bad things CAN be and not wanting to go there again. Not wanting to feel like I’m ever losing myself.
Deep down I do know that I will get through this. Not over, I get to carry this for the rest of my life, but through the worst of it. I know I can, know that I’ll be given divine help, know that I do have people around me who care for me, but I also know that it is going to continue to hurt. And I just don’t want to go through this. I’m fighting the urge to want to hide away, to numb these feelings, even though I know that won’t really make anything better. But it hurts, so very much.
So I have decided that I am going to be OK with simply not being OK, at least for now. No expectations for myself to be strong or to have to carry everyone else’s grief around me. I will allow those emotions to come and I will embrace the fact that this is nearly unbearable at times. I will also show up and do the things that need to be done. But I’m not going to apologize for needing space or time or for the fact that I’ll be struggling. It doesn’t feel like the same sort of huge hinge moment in my life as I had right after Kenny died. There’s no danger of my losing my faith or questioning God. I know my life still has meaning and purpose. But this IS hard. Of course it is. At this point no other loss would have cut me deeper. And I’m just going to allow it to be tough, without trying to make excuses for that.
