To My Mom: Part III Holding her hand

Mom holding her little sister's hand

The first two posts in this To My Mom Series were easy, so to speak. Writing is not necessarily easy for me, but it is a necessity. Anyway, my dad is working on a project that is helping him deal with his feelings and emotions, which when he's finished I may share with you all... depends on what he says about that. He is processing. He's mourning. He's working through the loss of his wife. I am not. I'm still pushing my thoughts about my mom away. I don't want to deal with her being gone. Well, of course I don't. Who would?

So, I am going to force myself, sort-of. It's time to start working out my anger. My fear. My sorrow. My everything. To start, it's about getting out the notebook I wrote much down in about my mom and cancer before she passed. I had also wrote in it the day she passed away while I was sitting next to her in her Hospital bed. I haven't opened it since that day.

I was told, and keep being told that everyone is different during the grieving process. Everyone handles grief differently, deals with the emotions differently. I get that. I see that. Dad grieves differently than my sister, which is different from her children, which is different from my brother, which is different from me. But I get concerned when it seems that everyone else has all these emotions and crying sessions, and I haven't. I haven't gotten emotional. I haven't cried since her memorial service. I start to think, maybe I'm not grieving. I'm not doing it right. I'm not having all the feels. I have to remind myself that I am grieving my mother. I'm just different from everybody else, just like everybody else is different from everybody else. Maybe I won't ever have those crying sessions. Maybe I won't have an emotional breakdown at inopportune times. And that's okay. It's okay. Maybe my brain knows it can't handle the heartbreak yet. Maybe, me pushing the thoughts of my mom out of my head at night while I lay awake in bed is because it isn't time yet.

Well today is the day that notebook gets opened again. Step one of allowing the brain to process the heart, so to speak. So what did I write that last day, not even knowing it was the last day? What I remember thinking but did not write down that day was that looking at her that last day, she wasn't in there. She was there but she was also already gone. There was only this shell that sort of looked like my mom.

But this is what I wrote that day in my notebook. I only omit the actual names of my nephews. The structure of how I wrote remains the same. It is very fragmented. Also, I didn't write anything after about... maybe 3pm that day (she passed just before 11pm). So there isn't anything here about how she passed, or who was there, or any of that process.

I also thought it would be easier on me to start here and not edit this entry, and perhaps work backwards in time of the entries I made in notebook form. We shall see.

So, here it is:

Dad holds her hand
People call and he holds the phone up to her ear so she can listen.

She can't talk, maybe a word here or there
but mostly nods yes or no.

She is on liquid morphine and decadron.

She is sleeping a lot/most of the time. She will wake briefly with a grunt and her face will contort like she is in pain, and she will breath heavy a few times and then go back asleep.

I finally cried today. Anytime someone says something or hugs/touches, I get teary. Of course so does everyone else.

The boys are doing good. Boy 1 is affectionate and holds her hand and cries. Boy 2 is more stoic, but can tell he's feeling.

What can I say about dad. He's amazing. He is so loving with her at her beck and call, have to drag him away from her side. But I worry about him. He hasn't broken down and sobbed. Neither have I, but still.

I've talked with him. He is ok. He is resolved and said he is jealous that she gets to find out before him. His faith in God as well as hers and the faith of their friends and family truly helps in this journey. The fact that they all believe in the afterlife and that she gets to see God and her mother soon comfort them and in turn comforts me.



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