Written on 9-27-26
Four days without you.
Today I did homework with Matthew.
I read to Abigail.
Those are incredibly ordinary things, but nothing feels ordinary right now.
I think if anything can distract me from the pain, it’s showing up like a mom. There is something about sitting beside my children and doing the things I’ve always done that gives my brain somewhere else to go for a little while.
Maybe that’s part of how I will get through this.
By still being their mom while I figure out how to live without mine.
Mom, I don’t want to go to your funeral.
It’s not that I don’t love you. I love you enough to go to your funeral.
It’s just that I don’t grieve this way.
I don’t grieve with people.
And I know that frustrated the hell out of you sometimes. You would call when I was falling apart, and somehow, even with you, I was unwilling to completely unravel.
But I think eventually you figured out that this is just who I am.
I don’t know how to talk when I’m overwhelmed. I only know how to go silent.
I’m so extroverted and outgoing that I think it’s easy for people to take that personally. But the bigger the feeling, the quieter I seem to become.
I talked to Bryan. He told me I’m all he has left in this world.
I don’t think that’s true.
But since losing you, I’ve caught myself thinking almost the opposite: maybe the fewer people I have, the better.
Because even through our trials, Mom—even during the times when we frustrated the absolute hell out of each other—I knew you loved me.
And you knew I loved you.
Losing someone I loved this much hurts badly enough.
I wonder sometimes if I’ll ever have the energy to explore the world the way I did before you died.
Because when life went sideways, I called you.
And you would just handle it.
Sometimes callously. 😂
But you handled it.
Or, when you couldn’t, you told me exactly how I should handle it.
And now that you’re not here, I’m scared.
I’m not scared of living day to day. I’m not afraid that I can’t take care of myself or my family.
I’m scared that my backbone is gone.
We were opposites, and I think that’s one of the reasons we worked so well in a lot of ways. It’s probably also why we had so much conflict.
But I think being different from each other was part of what made our relationship uniquely close.
You were everything I am not.
You were decisive.
Painfully unwilling to tolerate disloyalty.
You weren’t afraid to ask the question that might offend someone.
You were really good at controlling how much of your vulnerability you gave away.
You knew when it was time to pull back from someone. You knew how to limit the amount of control and space that person was allowed to take up in your mind.
You were callous in all the right ways.
Not mean.
You just didn’t put up with shit.
And then there was me.
I was your feeler child.
The one who felt everything.
The one who trusted everyone.
I was your calm.
But I was also the one who wasn’t afraid to leave the nest. I wasn’t afraid to go experience life on my own, even when it hurt you.
And you always told me that you loved that about me.
You told me it hurt that I never really needed to come home physically.
I always called home.
But I didn’t need to come home.
And you told me that was also a relief, because you knew that when this day eventually came, I would be okay.
And Mom, I am okay.
Or maybe okay isn’t the right word yet.
I’m grieving. I’m hurting. But right now my grief seems to have boundaries.
I’m still sleeping at night.
Not because I didn’t love you.
God, I loved the heck out of you.
I think I’m sleeping because some part of me understands that you’re not in pain. And another part understands something I really don’t want to understand yet:
You’re not here.
And I’ve got to figure out how to be the best version of myself now without you.
I can’t call you and sit on the phone for eight hours.
I can’t plot revenge with you.
I can’t laugh with you.
God, you were funny.
I remember one time your neighbor pissed you off. She had cancer, and you said that if you ever went terminal, she’d better watch out.
It was a joke.
But it was funny as hell.
And strangely, I always dreaded the possibility that you would go terminal, because then I would know I was losing you.
I imagined there would be a warning.
There would be time.
There would be things we would say.
But you never went terminal.
You were just here.
And then you weren’t.
Which, I suppose, is at least good news for your hit list.
I love you, Mom. Bye for now.