A few weeks ago, I was in the midst of a very real conversation with a friend, and I told her…I am living with a ghost.
It was a real moment of clarification for me.
There are so many ways that in the last 32 years I have wrestled with the loss of my mom, to put words to my thoughts about what it looks and feels like has long been a struggle. I have wondered out loud and often about if my mom would approve of the woman and adult that I am. I have struggled with if I ever even knew her, like really, really knew her. I have wondered and it hurts. And, what I finally realize…I live with her ghost.
The grief of today is so different than the grief of 32 years ago. The grief and sharp loss, the shock and the actual, physical pain that I felt on the day that my mother died has ebbed and flowed to a quiet, yet familiar, ache. It is not what it once was, changing and fluid, but so damn familiar after 32 years that in some ways feels like a tiny wrinkle in time, but not when I see the wrinkles on my face.
In the conversation with my friend, we were talking about grief and how to honor and recognize loss, how to not diminish our own pain because we are afraid that it isn’t “as big” as someone else’s pain. And, in that conversation, I was wanting to remind her, hard is hard, big is comparative, and there is no place in true friendship for the diminishing of one’s experiences.
In any conversation of loss, I enter with the handicap of some real, life changing grief. But, that doesn’t mean that I ever would diminish anyone else’s losses. But, it was the realization for me that in my brain and heart, and space, lives the ghost of my mother.
And, I admit…it makes me a person that has to sometimes remind myself to stay in the present, to embrace the joy and success, to take the losses, to roll….with all the things that life has handed me, and that I have grasped…with the life that I have, NOT the life that I don’t know.
If there is a handbook on grief, or a primer on loss….I didn’t get it. But, what I have learned over the last 32 years is the last thing to do is to diminish one’s feelings to make someone else more comfortable. I don’t have to explain every feelings, sometimes I just need the ability to feel what my truth is.
And, in my truth, I realize…in my heart and head space lives the ghost of my mother. There is no fear there, but it is real.
And, this morning, as I see the sun rising out of the window of my bedroom, I know the light is going to change, it will hit the corners where the shadows are, and I will see…as the light hits my face, I will see her. I will see my mother in my smile, in the chin that I inherited from her. Seeing her inside of me will have to be the solace on the anniversary of her death, because I cannot wrap my arms around her, I cannot sit at her table, I cannot breathe deeply of her, I cannot feel her cold hands on my warm cheek.
But, I am proof that she existed. I am proof that she was here, and not just in the form of a ghost.
Oh Mom, how much you are loved, how much you are missed, how much time has passed since you last laughed, or cried, or wrapped someone lucky in your hug…goodness, it’s a whole lot. 32 years since that chilly Saturday when you blinked awake for the last time…
Several years ago, my sweet Emily told me that I needed to listen to a song called “Supermarket Flowers”, by Ed Sheeran. Of course I did…and like so much music…it resonates, and lives inside of my heart. It is heavy in my head today….I don’t need to listen to it to feel it.
“…Oh I’m in pieces, it’s tearing me up, but I know
A heart that’s broke is a heart that’s been loved
So I’ll sing Hallelujah
You were an angel in the shape of my mum
When I fell down you’d be there holding me up
Spread your wings as you go…”
GratitudeThroughChange 