It has been a year and four months since my mother died. In this time I have learned that though I actually can move on, and I can handle my life, I will always, no matter how many people are in the room, feel a loneliness, an emptiness, because I can never again call my mother and ask her advice, rehash the day's events or run something by her. I have learned that I will never enjoy a cup of coffee again as much as I did when laughing over one with her. It is exactly as William Wordsworth wrote and which, as a young and naive college student, I thought I understood but could only guess at:
| The rainbow comes and goes, | 10 |
| And lovely is the rose; | |
| The moon doth with delight | |
| Look round her when the heavens are bare; | |
| Waters on a starry night | |
| Are beautiful and fair; | 15 |
| The sunshine is a glorious birth; | |
| But yet I know, where'er I go, | |
| That there hath pass'd away a glory from the earth. |
I have learned that grief is not linear, but fluid. It does not progress from stage to stage, from a beginning to an end, to a moment of understanding. There are days when I feel as though I am healing, that I am reaching a state of peace and my grief comes unbidden from a depth I did not know I possessed. The finality of it hits me all over again. The sweetness of my mother's soul comes back to me. The craziness of her sense of humor. The absolute depths of her love for my children. How she helped me through every crisis of my life. Gone. How can it be?
My mother and I used to have these crazy adventures. Actually we would just go out, maybe to an auction, or shopping, or to this inn we loved. But they always turned into crazy adventures. We started calling ourselves Lucy and Ethel because of the hijinks we would find ourselves in, our sides hurting from laughing so much. Sometimes I can actually smile when I think of it.
Tomorrow when people are taking their moms out for brunch and dinner, buying them flowers, showering them with love, I am going to be thinking of the strong beautiful woman I was so very blessed to have as my mother. God, keep her close, and bless her. I love her dearly.
