When my mom passed I knew profoundly that my life would never be the same. It wasn’t the painful acknowledgement of the mourning period, the morbid checklist of grieving duties to perform, or even the agonizing distribution of my mother’s possessions that made me acutely aware. It was plain and simple. It was loss. I knew that each moment from then on out would lose the potential of its happiness trajectory. This is not to say life can not again be happy. My children bring me happiness. My husband, my family, and the seemingly endless number of pets I have traipsing through the house bring me happiness. A good cup of coffee or tea paired with a baked good can bring an almost spiritual sense of peace and I’ve been known, at least to the dog, to do a fantastic rendition of Jimmy Rankin’s “Haul Away the Whale” as I do the dishes with all the passion of a late night pub patron half in her cups. And for the last couple of years even these things were wrought with grief. None of these things remain untouched by the loss of my mother. She has reached from the beyond and left a mark by her sheer absence.
There have been moments in my life when I have felt like a grown up. You’d think more given my age and responsibilities, but actually adulthood for me has come in realisations. I remember my grandmother well into her 70s said there were days she felt 17, 22, 35. She was often surprised by her age. When she said this, I was nowhere near adulthood. Technically, I was close but not in understanding. She was always my grandmother as far as I knew. She always had grandmother curls and wore grandmother dresses and made spectacular grandmother bread. So when she spoke about going parking with her boyfriend and another couple – needless to say I almost fell off my chair! Did she say parking? In pairs? Perhaps I should have known that for me was a moment of embracing adulthood. Understanding that life had gone on before me, that we would all change and grow up and hopefully old, and the loss of times past meant a maturity only brought on through the pain.
As I’m sitting here writing almost two years past my mother’s death and over 20 for my grandmother’s, grief is ever present. It has shifted. It doesn’t paralyse or knock the wind out of me as much as it did. But I can feel it, intangible as it is. I feel it like I can feel the keys under my fingers and the fur of my dog as he shuffles over to check on me. It is very strong with my children, almost sitting next to me. A look, a Halloween costume, an eye roll from our oldest and I know my mom would want to be here. For it all. I feel the loss then in both happy and sad moments. The sad moments are made sadder and the happy ones are happy with a taste of poignancy. Before the loss, happiness was happiness. I suppose this is the innocence of youth. After loss, happiness has a weight to it. An awareness of loss, time, and the lack of control of many aspects of life. I can see why adults need more sleep. Weighty happiness and sadness, pound for pound, is exhausting.
My mother was a wonderful mother as her mother was to her. It is the presence and ironically the absence of both these women in my life that have propelled me unwillingly into adulthood. They have given me great insights, set tremendous examples, and demonstrated the unconditional love of being a mother. Their role, even now, is the same. It just carries with it a deeper and heavier understanding.