Guilt is about to totally consume me. Mom’s been gone for seven weeks. I have laughed more than I’ve cried. I’ve been in more good moods than bad ones. I’ve gone whole hours without thinking about her. I’ve cried only a handful of times.
If I mention to someone that I haven’t been devastated, I usually get a similar response. Mom had cancer for 8 years…so maybe, deep down, I was “preparing” myself.
Nope.
Believe me when I tell you that I was NOT prepared for this. Sure, Mom and I talked about death quite a bit. I’m sure many of you who were close to her will remember her mentioning MORE than once that she was worried how I’d handle her dying. She thought I was in denial about it…that I couldn’t accept the fact that she would eventually die from this stupid disease. And she was absolutely right. I could talk to her about insanely morbid things…but something in me shut off when we did speak of it. I mean, how could I even fathom her being GONE?? Here I was, staring at her completely beautiful, healthy face talking about how I’d never see it again. It was illogical to my brain. DOES NOT COMPUTE!!
People often say, “Well…it wasn’t sudden. You were probably subconsciously ‘ready’ for it.”
Nope…again.
In the grand scheme of things, Mom’s death WAS very sudden. On June 8th, G proposed to me. Mom was beside herself. She had been looking forward to me getting married since about…ohhhh…2 years after G and I met. And we met TEN YEARS AGO! Exactly one week after we got engaged, she called to tell me that she had a brain tumor. Well, crap. Of course, this scared me much more than any other “findings” in the past. This wasn’t just a rib…this was her BRAIN for goodness sake! I went with her to one of only three Cyberknife treatments. The nurse even let me come back and watch how it worked. I burst into tears the second I saw Mom lying on that table with this weird mask over her face. Don’t get me wrong. The Cyberknife radiation isn’t a scary thing. It’s basically like this huge hair drier that zooms all around your head sending invisible radiation beams through your brain. That’s not what made me cry. It was the mask. That damn mask hid Mom’s face from me. Before treatment began, they put this mesh-like material over Mom’s face to make somewhat of a “mold”. That way, they could put it over her face, BOLT it to the table, and they knew she was in the same exact spot every single time. I couldn’t stand looking at this mesh-like version of my mother. I couldn’t stand thinking that she could be claustrophobic with something so close to her face that her eyelashes brushed against it. But, after three days, the treatments were over. Mom even felt better for a while. When she started having balance issues and headaches we all thought that it was probably some delayed reaction from the radiation. The oncologist even went ahead and did another brain scan a few weeks earlier than intended and the tumor was shrinking faster than they could’ve hoped for! I knew another miracle happened. I just knew that Mom had dodged yet another bullet. But Mom’s balance, headaches and vision just started getting worse. So, she went to the University Hospital to see a specialist. They immediately admitted her into the hospital to run some “tests”.
Two weeks later, my mother was dead.
So, yes…to me…it was VERY sudden. When she was first admitted to the hospital, she was very alert…being her normal charming, sweet self. The nurses that worked with her those first few nights couldn’t believe how quickly she had deteriorated a week later when they came back on rotation. No, I don’t think any of us expected this. G even went out of town after she had surgery because the doctor said she’d done great. Thank God he got back in time to say goodbye. I’m not sure he would’ve forgiven himself if he hadn’t made it back in time.
I’m rambling…so I’ll try and get to the point of this post. I feel immense and sharp guilt. Mom and I were as close as a mother and daughter can be. I know I’ve said it so many times…but we were absolute best friends. I used to say that I couldn’t even imagine living without her. I couldn’t fathom getting married and having children without her by my side. I guess a part of me still doesn’t know how to go on. I just do. There’s nothing else I CAN do except go on. But…why am I not curled in the fetal position mourning my mother? Why am I getting up every day, getting things done? It’s been almost TWO MONTHS, and I’ve had ONE DAY that I had a few meltdowns. The day that I cried so hard…I thought…this is it…the crazy sadness is about to come crashing down. But I went to sleep, woke up, and went back to getting things done.
I feel guilty that I’m not crying for her all the time. I feel so damn guilty for not mourning her with the crazed pain and sadness that I expected to have. I feel guilty every time I laugh, every time I have a great day, every time I “forget” for a few hours because I’m distracted by what I’m doing. I keep thinking that the day will come when I’ll collapse on the floor while pain envelopes me. That day never comes! Some days, I still feel like it’s all not “real”. But I KNOW it’s real. Some days, I TRY to get upset. I think about not having heard her voice for so long. I think about never seeing her beautiful face ever again. I replay the two weeks that I lived in the hospital room with her over and over in my mind. I think about all these things, and I still don’t cry. I view these thoughts and memories as if I were watching someone else’s life in a movie. I have somehow detached my emotions from it. I can just look at what’s going on in a logical, matter-of-fact kind of way instead of viewing it through the veil of my emotions. I don’t get it! I’m mad at myself for not screaming for my mommy every single night. I feel like I’m not honoring the bond we had. I keep thinking, “If we were as close as I know we were, and as close as other people know we were, then why am I not more upset?” Not only that, but I was SO emotionally dependent on my mother. It didn’t matter what subject we were talking about…I was always searching for her approval. So, how am I making all kinds of crazy decisions without having a meltdown after each one…knowing that Mom isn’t here to either validate me or scold me.
I can’t even begin to tell you how many times people have told me, “There are NO rules to grief!” Maybe not…but I had a different idea of what MY grief would look like after I lost the most important person in my life. And what’s going on with me now is most certainly NOT what my idea of grief is. I feel so guilty every minute of the day. I feel like I’m unintentionally lessening the importance of the bond we shared. I feel like I MUST have that period of time where I’m so sad that I can’t function. If I don’t have that time…if it never comes…what does that say about how I view my relationship with Mom?
Many of my well-meaning, loving friends have said they admire my strength. They tell me that I am unbelievably “strong” and “inspirational”.
Nope. Nope. Nope.
I feel like a fraud. I don’t feel like I’m very strong. If anything I feel like I’m incredibly weak. I honestly don’t believe that “strength” has had anything to do with my lack of emotion. And it really is just that…an absence of mourning and emotion. Maybe “absence” isn’t the right word. The pain and sadness are definitely THERE. I feel it from time to time…especially at night. It just rarely manifests itself into anything more than a fleeting thought or feeling.
The thing is…I’m extremely grateful for the lack of pain and sadness. I don’t WANT to feel those negative emotions. And that by itself makes me feel a huge guilt as well. How dare I feel happy and excited about my future, when my mother won’t ever be here to enjoy it with me? How could I possibly NOT feel guilty about having even one moment of happiness, when I’ll never have the privilege of sharing that happiness with the person I shared everything with?
I don’t know the answer to letting go of the guilt. Yes, I’m scared of feeling the complete weight of what mourning my mother may be like. At the same time, the guilt of NOT feeling that complete and raw emotion is starting to chip away at my armor a little bit. And my armor has quite a few dents in it already. As pretty much everyone has told me at one point or another, “Only time will tell!”
As for the mask…the one that made me cry when I saw Mom wearing it? Yeah, they gave it to her after her treatments were over. She thought it was funny. I did not. But now Mom’s gone…and that mask belongs to me. Although I hate it for what it made me feel…I can’t bring myself to throw it away. It is, after all, the exact mold of my mother’s face. Funny, how something that you absolutely hate…ends up being one of the only things you have left to hold on to something you love.
2 comments:
MB, I forget if I already shared this thought with you, but not too long after my Mom died, and I expressed a lot of these same feelings, they said what a wonderful job my mother had done in raising me to be a woman who could stand on my own two feet, that my moving forward was the best testimony I could give to the way my mother raised me. That helped me more than I can tell you. And that is what sweet Beth did for you - she raised you to be a woman who knows she is loved, and can do absolutely anything with love behind her. That is her legacy, and that is how she can rest is peace. If she worried for you, and if you were falling apart, Beth would be suffering still. Please give that some thought my sweet adopted child.
i love you sweets and love reading your honesty. yes, i think you are strong, but i also agree with what you have written. a positive, is that you are at least investigating your emotions and thoughts and not "turning off" yourself. kudos for that. i like to think she still lives through you.... she will always be with us. not like we want it to be, but with us nonetheless. i love you sweets and i'm holding you in the biggest hug ever! love- aimes
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