Grief

A week ago we said our public goodbyes to my mom. A little less than two weeks ago, I watched her take her last breath, after laughing, crying and singing at her bedside that afternoon. Almost two months ago, I cut a 9 mile run short at 6 miles for no apparent reason – only to come home to find multiple missed calls from my mom and a voicemail letting me know she was headed to the ER to have her abdominal pain checked out for possible appendicitis. Just over two months ago, we walked on the beach together, she played in the waves with my toddlers - encouraging them to enjoy the salty water and let it allow them to float, she watched my first-born turn four, dancing in the surf and held the bowl steady as we mixed the batter for her birthday cupcakes. 

I didn’t see it coming.

Most moments of the day I still can’t believe it happened. Until I try to take a breath and then I remember.

I want to go sit in the waiting room at the hospital. Or sit in her surgeon’s office. I want to be close to where we last worked together. Where we were working to get her better for chemo and more birthdays and bike rides and another trip to the beach with a new granddaughter added in.

While she was in the hospital, I was at her bedside nearly every morning at 6am to beat the early rounding oncologist. And I stayed, waiting for other specialties to come weigh in. We walked inside and out. I made her tea. We worked on correspondence. We talked about her grandchildren. We talked about me. We talked about her. I tended her flowers. We joked about coffee breath and I brought my own toothbrush to keep beside hers. I silenced her IV pump until a nurse came in the room. I rocked her. She hugged me. I hugged back. I trimmed her nails. She told me I needed to make time for a haircut. She did Sudoku and I scrolled Facebook on my phone. And then her surgeon would come and sit with us, and we would develop the next plan, together. And then she & I would talk about what that plan would mean. And we would prepare ourselves for it. And then I would go home, leaving her in the care of her nurses and techs, many of whom had grown so fond of the sweet lady with the good attitude in room 678. We would text throughout the evening as I bathed toddlers, fed them supper and tucked them into bed with a night time story. We would talk before bed, even after spending all day together, there was still more to be said and shared – did I make my haircut appointment? What was the plan for her pain control and sleep for the night? One night we talked at great length about the soup she would eat when she was discharged home with me. I was planning homemade recipes -- butternut squash, potato, chicken noodle. After we hung up she sent a text telling me how canned soup would be equally fine. We texted goodnight every night, and I watched the sunrise from her room every morning. They were 30 of the hardest days of our lives. Yet now, they are 30 of my most precious memories.

I guess all that explains why when I roll over at 5am now I can’t seem to get back to sleep. I want to pull on clothes, fix my coffee and watch the sunrise from her bedside. Because that would mean I could still talk to her, text with her, laugh with her, plan with her.

I almost cannot bear to think about the time she was at home with me - passing out Halloween candy to our neighbors in her pajamas and socks and sandals, talking with the home health nurse while she did her dressing change, nibbling a bite of her grandson’s third birthday cake, swallowing her pills handed one by one to her by stubby toddler fingers, getting hooked up to her TPN at night with her granddaughter insistent on holding her hand, listening to her pace the floors at night, overhearing her teaching her granddaughter to write her middle name, making plans for the future.

In hindsight, I cannot bear to think of the suffering she was enduring all through those nine days. Quietly. Bravely. If the preceding 30 were hard, these nine were even harder. I cannot bear to think how close I was without knowing. I shudder to think of how the cancer was taking over her body in that time. I thought she was sad, depressed, anxious. And I suppose she was - those were real. But it wasn’t until her breathing sped up and her belly became swollen, that I began to understand that the cancer was to blame.

Her last five days at the hospital were fearful, scattered, discouraging, disappointing, searching, seeking. And then there was peace and laughter and acceptance. There was a knowing of love and a life well-lived – well-danced.

Up until this afternoon, I couldn’t put into words how I felt. But a knowing friend gave me the word – numb.

The numbness has zapped me. Simple tasks seem overwhelming; accomplishing them a triumph.

I am so very sad. And lost. And yet every day I have to take another step forward.

Yesterday, I shared my loss with an acquaintance, practicing my reality on the rest of the world. She teared up, unbeknownst to me, she lost her father nearly two years ago to colon cancer also. She is no longer an acquaintance, but a part of my ever growing support system.

Today, I took care of my children. Tomorrow, I plan to do the same, and maybe grocery shop too.

And the tomorrows after that will come and I will greet them and step ahead into them.

This is grief they say.