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baasheepToday marks the 364th day of my mothers death. According to the old wives tales you need a year and a day to grieve. That way you get all the "first" anniversaries out of the way. Yeaaah.
Truthfully I cannot believe almost a year has past since she left. The time between her getting sick, getting diagnosed and ultimately passing away was four months. A whirlwind of sickness and death. The days after felt so long as my mind caught up with what had happened. There is so so much care involved in someone so sick making sure they are comfortable,clean, that the pill scheduale is adhered to (of utmost importance when its pain relief we are talking about)not to mention entertaining them, knowing when they need company, knowing when to shoo the ever present visitors away, the many many many questions to ask of social workers, hospice nurses, community nurses. We did this for less then a week but it was one of the most exhausting stressful miserable periods in my life. With that comes the guilt. It was my mother not some stranger I should feel blessed that we had the time with her, to look after her. Instead all I feel is a bitterness, that life is so unfair, that hideous cancers still have no cure. Most of all I am incredibly angry at god. Furious. Not because she got sick but because of all the cancers out there she got this one. This one that is hard to diagnose until its too late, this one where the only treatments involved are a huge surgery if it is diagnosed in time or palliative care to preserve quality of life in the remaining time they have left. Which more often then not is less then a year.
I guess I still have some anger issues left over all of this. More then this anger though is the sheer sense of loss. There's a mother shaped hole in my life that won't ever be filled again. She did not deserve this. She never hurt anyone. She was a quiet lady who was all about the home and family. She loved musicals, dean martin, elvis presley and matlock. She did not want to die, you know the way some people say when they are very sick that death is a kind of release? Not my mother, I know her I know she wanted to cling onto every drop of life she could.
At my aunts funeral last week her daughers came up to me. We hugged and G the eldest whispered that she was sad we had this in common. Yeah me too. Ev was buried in the same type of coffin as my mother. It jolted me quite badly when I saw it. It was the first funeral since Mam and much harder then I thought. I spent most of it in floods of tears. We went to Mam's grave on the way home. The sheer loss of it as death takes away one family member after another. The next day I had several comments in work saying how quiet I was. I could feel something building. The dread, the heartburn, the short temperedness, the sadness. On the way home I could feel the tears start to leak out. When I shut the front door I howled. Howled at the unfairness of it all. The loss. The sheer loss.
Truthfully I cannot believe almost a year has past since she left. The time between her getting sick, getting diagnosed and ultimately passing away was four months. A whirlwind of sickness and death. The days after felt so long as my mind caught up with what had happened. There is so so much care involved in someone so sick making sure they are comfortable,clean, that the pill scheduale is adhered to (of utmost importance when its pain relief we are talking about)not to mention entertaining them, knowing when they need company, knowing when to shoo the ever present visitors away, the many many many questions to ask of social workers, hospice nurses, community nurses. We did this for less then a week but it was one of the most exhausting stressful miserable periods in my life. With that comes the guilt. It was my mother not some stranger I should feel blessed that we had the time with her, to look after her. Instead all I feel is a bitterness, that life is so unfair, that hideous cancers still have no cure. Most of all I am incredibly angry at god. Furious. Not because she got sick but because of all the cancers out there she got this one. This one that is hard to diagnose until its too late, this one where the only treatments involved are a huge surgery if it is diagnosed in time or palliative care to preserve quality of life in the remaining time they have left. Which more often then not is less then a year.
I guess I still have some anger issues left over all of this. More then this anger though is the sheer sense of loss. There's a mother shaped hole in my life that won't ever be filled again. She did not deserve this. She never hurt anyone. She was a quiet lady who was all about the home and family. She loved musicals, dean martin, elvis presley and matlock. She did not want to die, you know the way some people say when they are very sick that death is a kind of release? Not my mother, I know her I know she wanted to cling onto every drop of life she could.
At my aunts funeral last week her daughers came up to me. We hugged and G the eldest whispered that she was sad we had this in common. Yeah me too. Ev was buried in the same type of coffin as my mother. It jolted me quite badly when I saw it. It was the first funeral since Mam and much harder then I thought. I spent most of it in floods of tears. We went to Mam's grave on the way home. The sheer loss of it as death takes away one family member after another. The next day I had several comments in work saying how quiet I was. I could feel something building. The dread, the heartburn, the short temperedness, the sadness. On the way home I could feel the tears start to leak out. When I shut the front door I howled. Howled at the unfairness of it all. The loss. The sheer loss.
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Date: 2008-04-07 11:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 02:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 02:31 am (UTC)Keep coming back here and keep telling us about it, let it all out in all its blackness. Better out than in.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 02:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 03:12 am (UTC)I guess that in my own grief over my uncle, I am just happy that she suffered for only a short time. It is you who I worry about. You and your dad, who have suffered the longest.
You are in my heart and thoughts. She died with grace. You live with that grace.
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Date: 2008-04-08 12:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 01:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 02:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 02:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 02:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 03:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-08 04:13 pm (UTC)