Originally written 12/11/22

In the weeks that followed my mother’s death, the busyness that occurs immediately afterwards slowed down and a sinking quiet rolled in like a fog over the harbor. That initial busyness is essential to surviving the first shock of death. The brain needs tasks, a to-do list, to keep its attention turned safely away from the fact that life is currently in a free-fall, permanently changed and changing. Life is spiraling at a rapid rate away from what was known into something new that is supposed to feel somehow like “getting back to normal.” You don’t recognize your surroundings. And yet, you’re just sitting in the living room you grew up in.

After the funeral has ended and the last card arrives in the mail, there is a feeling that is similar to standing staring vacantly into an open fridge full of food and somehow there is still nothing to eat. The world is gray. Flavorless. And the only things left to do are “normal” tasks like watering the plants, plucking your eyebrows, and the other things you’ve let slip because when you’re standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon that is death, these things are too mundane to care about. On the other side of that canyon, however, it’s the everything else that becomes unimportant – connection, work, building a future – all of these things feel silly now, like things only happy people with intact families care about. The only tolerable activities now are the small ones, the things that require very little processing but that hold you in the present because both the past and the future have giant “Do Not Enter” signs across them now. So you put all your plants in the bathtub, water them, and try and get on with things.

My mother’s illness – a brain disease that took her personality, her memories, and eventually all of her abilities – came on quickly. By the time we were finished asking the question, “Does something seem wrong with Mom?” she had already rapidly progressed to the next phase of her disease and before we knew it, my mother had changed from the person we knew to a version of herself that was functioning similarly to a three year old child. She was very sweet then, and in some ways it was pleasant to be with her, as long as you didn’t focus too hard on the nightmare.

The first warning signs that something was wrong happened subtly in the fall of 2021. I had told my husband we were getting divorced 5 months before, and had spent the months since moving from transitional apartment to transitional apartment, while in a deep depression and avoiding contact with the outside world as much as possible. I was broken. Humiliated. And deeply damaged by the toxicity of the rage and hatred that had infiltrated my marriage and erased every feeling of joy I associated with what had previously been my safety net. The fog had taken me then, too.  There is an in-between kind of suicidal where you’re not necessarily considering killing yourself, you’re just sort of wistfully dreaming of a painless terminal illness coming along and carrying you off to a nicer time. “Maybe a tree will fall in the woods,” you think quietly. “That would be nice.”

My mother’s illness snapped me to. Suddenly, I was standing at full attention again. And by the time her disease escalated to the true no turning back point where it was clear life was barreling forward in one singular direction, I was in a full emotional sprint. I was determined to save my mother who couldn’t be saved. I was determined to carry her across the finish life. I was committing to protecting her, distracting her and doing everything I could to keep her from feeling afraid. And there would be no room for me to feel afraid either.

In that panic, I managed to buy a home and move my life back to my hometown, leaving the community that had previously housed my marriage, everything familiar, and all potential for uncomfortable grocery store run-ins behind. For me, the hardest option usually seems the easiest.

In those weeks following my mother’s death, when the quiet appeared and my plants were in the bathtub, I found myself trying to remember who I was before my mother got sick. Go back to the before, I’d tell myself. Find yourself there.

But there was no before. Because before that, there was the divorce cloud. And before that was the pandemic cloud. And before that there was a happy marriage. But that was gone. And my mother’s shoulder was no longer available to cry on.

I had let my mothers illness and eventual death form a scab over the wound of my divorce. It was a welcome relief to be pulled out of that emotional wreckage and into a new trauma that was at least filled with love. I poured myself into it. I let it be a salve to my pain. And I actually fell for the trick that the pain of my divorce was behind me. I barely thought it about it while she was dying. I was only glad I was there.

As I begin to tend to the wound of losing my mother, as I curl up under a blanket of grief, my other wound has begun to surface. There is a raw and stagnant loss left lingering and as tears roll out of me, it is unclear which wound I am weeping for. It is grief on grief, and these wounds have become fused together in time, in place, and in my heart.

I’m tending to myself that way you would tend to a wounded soldier you found on the side of the road. Once the wound was discovered it was easier to know what to do. You flush it out and remove any lingering debris, bite down on a leather strap as needed for pain. You give it some time to dry out in fresh air. You apply some ointment. And then you wrap it in fresh dressing, swaddling it like a baby needing sleep.

Slowly, the wounds are starting to separate as they’ve now begun to properly heal. Tending to my divorce wound requires a softening into myself. It requires that I emotionally wrap my arms around my pain and offer myself grace in place of shame. It requires turning on a little nightlight of future hope and asking myself tenderly, “Where do you want to go and what will you use to spin pain into love?” There is evidence of healing, and soon pink skin will appear. Eventually I won’t think about it much. Maybe some of the happy memories of my marriage will return, who knows. That feels a long way off.

The wound of losing my mother will heal too, but it will be different. It will be the type of wound that leaves a scar you are grateful for because it’s the kind of injury that deserves record. The kind you might show to a friend, tracing your finger along the raised edges, sharing the details of what happened and how many stitches it took and how the doctor was really quite nice. It’s not the kind of wound you move on from. It’s forever woven into layers of connective tissue, an area of restriction that will always affect the movement of things around it. This is the way of large scars.

I’m being careful not to rush the healing. I don’t want to move too quickly, assume I’m fine and dart out into the cold without a jacket. These things take time. We know what they say about time. 

In the meantime, I’ll pluck my eyebrows and make sure all of the plants get a drink.