"Your mom was a great person and I'll never forget her."
"You and your dad will make it through, your mom wouldn't have it
any other way."
"Honey, you have been so brave throughout. I don't know how you
do it."
These comments bounce in my head like leaden weights as I sit in
the back of a black Lincoln that will carry my father and me home.
Relatives, friends, and people I didn't even know had come up to me at
the funeral and said kind things about my mom. They were trying, I
guess, to console my loss or maybe to console their own. It's wasn't
working. They just made the pain worse, faking a sorrow that wasn't
there. They just wanted to come see how the little girl who lost her
mom was handling it. Wondering if she had gone crazy. Maybe that is
too harsh. I'm sure some of them at least really meant well, but it all
seems like an act. As if those people could ever hurt as much as I do.
They could not possibly know what is going on in my head and my heart.
My mother was gone. How could they ever know such pain as this? I felt
lonely at the funeral, even though my dad stood next to me the whole
time. We are in different worlds, mourning our loss separately,
ignoring each other. I haven't really felt anything yet. I'm numb,
still in shock. I haven't even cried. I can't because crying would be
an admission of her death.
I glance at my dad. He is sitting in his black suit, his thinning
hair parted perfectly to one side. He hasn't let me see him cry yet,
but I know that he has. I hear him in the night, controlled sobs
carried though the house. I have lain awake in that place between sleep
and alertness wondering when Mom is going to be home. It is a dream
that seems so real, as if at any moment she is going to waltz into my
room and comfort me by saying it was all a dream, it's all over. But I
know the painful truth, that my mother lies in a cherry wood box in six
feet of dirt.
Now, my father glances back at me and gives me a sheepish smile.
The smile says it will all be okay, but the pain he feels is
unmistakable. His eyes betray him, they are full of pain and
sorrow. He doesn't believe that we will ever be okay again. he doesn't
know what to do next. I can tell Dad is worried about me. He doesn't
know how I'm dealing with Mom being gone. I can't let him know how
much I hurt. I have to lie and say I'm doing okay and withstand the
urge to reach for him. We are not very close. We never have been, so
her death has forced two perfect strangers to learn how to comfort each
other.
As we sit in the silence of the car, Dad puts his grief on the
back burner to splurge and ask if I'm okay.
"Yeah" I reply in an unexpectedly weak voice. I had surely meant
it to sound much stronger. He looks right into my eyes and for the
first time I can ever remember he says I love you.
Then for the first time I cry. I cry hard in loud sobs. Dad
envelops me in his broad shoulders. I lay in his arms, his
aftershave is familiar and comfortable. I feel Dad's tears on my
face. We just clutch each other and let the thought finally set in
that she is really gone.
I think back to that dreadful night. She had been out drinking
with her girlfriends. She was drunk but had survived the trip home. My
dad put her into bed and she was asleep instantly. Sometimes I wonder
if she had died in an car accident would it have hurt so much? Would
her death have made a little more sense? I'll never know. When I think
back on it, Mom did drink a lot. She would have her afternoon drink
when I got home. She had a drink with dinner and sometimes more before
bed. Dad never could get her to help herself. I don't think he was
strong enough to really do anything about it. Sometimes Mom was fine
like nothing was wrong in the world. She would be making pancakes for
breakfast in the morning and being a happy person. Then there were
also the days she spent in bed silently crying. She literally spent
days in bed not eating, not moving, so silent you might think she was
dead. She somehow worked through those times and we never thought twice
about them. I don't think I'll ever forgive myself for not saying a
word and let it kill her. I so desperately wish I could go back in
time and change everything to make it all just right.
I had awoken from my sleep to a loud crash. It had been her
lifeless body collapsing onto cold linoleum floor. Frightened, I ran
to the source of the racket. In the bathroom, I found her sprawled
out with a handful of sleeping pills. I screamed in disbelief, and
just stood towering over her like a marble statue until the paramedics
arrived.
She was pronounced dead at the hospital at 4:19am. The reason
given for death was suicide. My mother had taken her own life and with
it shattered the life of my father and myself. She was gone in an
instant that will never be retrieved.
Mom lived on impulse and never thought things through. She felt
that whatever came to mind first was probably the best bet. Her advice
to me was always trust your gut. "Never second guess it can lead to
trouble." she used to say. I wish I knew what had been running through
her mind when be swallowed the sleeping pills. Had she really meant to
kill herself or was she just trying to sleep and being as drunk as she
was didn't know how much she was taking. So many "what if" questions
rum through my mind. Nobody will ever know what was really going on in
her mind that night.
Suddenly, the Lincoln halts in front of home. Home. Not the word I
would use anymore. Now, it's just a house that shelters me. I don't
want to live here, it will hurt too much. Dad breaks away from our
embrace. Coldness envelops us again as we get out of the blackness of
the car. Outside, the sun shines and a crisp breeze stirs golden
leaves in the yard. Dad lumbers slowly into the house like he would
rather be anywhere else but here. I stand in front of my house,
pondering what the inside holds for us now. Mom made it her sanctuary.
Her idea of a vacation was candles and rainforest sounds at home.
Mom had so many trinkets, garage sale finds and picture frames of the
family everywhere. Chills run up my spine like a piercing wind as I
think of the love that once filled that house. It was going to like
being in a haunted house with some much of her still lingering. This
morning I could still smell the vanilla perfume she wore. The house is
so lifeless or rather full of the life of a dead mother.
Dad and I haven't said any whole sentences to each other since Mom
has been gone. We just don't have anything to say to each other. She
would talk to both of us or to only one of us. Dad and I never actually
initiated a conversation with each other. So having her gone we have
no interaction at all. Neither one of us can approach the other to ask
for a shoulder to cry on. Even though, we are each other's only chance
for a little solace. It's been so hard living in that house. I even
saw Dad looking through the apartments in the newspaper. I know he
cannot stand the house anymore.
I just want the hurt to go away. All the memories of my mother
are already faded and dull now that she is not here to create new ones.
It seems they are just dying away. I'm so afraid that one day I am
going to wake up and not remember what she looks like, what her laugh
sounds like and everything that makes her who she is. I am afraid of
losing her all over again. I'm afraid too that if I remember
everything, including her death. I don't want to hold onto to that
memory, but it stands out graphic and ominous. I am in a position that
I would not wish on my darkest enemy. I have to choose between
remembering and forgetting an entire part of my life. I can't find the
happy medium that would save me. Maybe I don't have to find it. Maybe
I can live both sides of the coin. I love my mother as if she were
right here with me. I can never stop that, it is something larger than
me. I think that all I can do is love her and never forget her and let
her fade. I won't remember the end of her life, because that was not
what her life was about. Her whole life was not about ending it all in
a handful of pills. So I will not remember her end but only what we
shared together in happinesses. I sound so naive, I can't expect
everything to fit together perfectly like a children's puzzle. I am not
alone though, I have my father too. I guess I have forgotten that he is
going through the same thing I am. He is hurting just the same. No one
told me that this would be so hard. Then again no one expects their
mother or wife to die.
I am seeing things with a clearer focus than before. My house
seems a little less haunted and lonesome with the realization that I'm
not alone and never had been. I will talk to my dad and begin the slow
process of getting to know each other. We can start by teaching each
other what to say in those long silences over the breakfast table. I
think we can learn to be human once again. This house seems more
like a home. It is a different home with different people but it truly
is home.
[Twistin' Knife Love] [Sweet Love] [Bit of Inspiration] [Head Down Low] [Short and Sweet] [Just a Little Darker]
