letters to the sneaky grief
i was standing in my kitchen, pouring my evening ollipop into a wine glass, getting ready to fold laundry and watch friends, and my heart sank.
because i just remembered my mom died.
again.
no trigger, no special date or anniversary or birthday or holiday. no mention or thought of mothers or children.
i just remembered.
i go through life hearing myself say “my mom passed,” and “when my mom died,” and i know what that means. my mom passed in june, 2024. i know this. when i say it, i’m actively recalling this information.
but sometimes… it just settles on me. over me. or into the cavity of my chest. or maybe it pulls me under the water with it.
it feels like my heart will stop. the wild scream wants to claw out of my throat and my limbs want to fall to the floor, and my mind does what it always does and starts to leave my body.
and i’m left, this wild, primal, raw animal and also this small, broken, hollow shell.
my mother, the person i came from, the person whose blood and organs and skin rearranged themselves so that i could come live, doesn’t exist anymore.
my abuser, my best friend, who i have loved and feared and taken care of and hid from and begged for love and begged for forgiveness and made angry and made sad is gone.
the blissful freedom is agonizing.
there will be no other ending to our story, than this.
it’s about now that despair takes control, not a heavy one like earlier, but an almost manic flurried frenzy of tears and. my throat aches from holding tears, so i sob. and i sob. and i sob. and when it feels like i’m about to be torn open from the sobbing, i start the pleading.
please give me a sign, i’m sorry, i’m sorry, i’m sorry, please, please, please.
when the pleading starts, the memory fades.
i forget the reasons i went no contact, i forget the stories of other children, i forget the ways i fear the sound of wind, i forget the childhood years that felt like torment, and i only remember the begging.
i remember begging her to love me.
and i do it again.
and i beg for a sign.
and i beg for forgiveness.
unexpected grief is maybe like a hurricane, or a tornado. i’m dorothy, and i’m being tossed around a house being uprooted by the storm. as i write this, my rational mind is coming back, going back into my body. and i’m seeing, for the first time in six months, that the unexpected waves of grief that hit me and drag me down (and around and around) makes me regress in age the more i spiral.
i’m 26,
and then i’m 21, wondering how to handle this whole mom thing,
and then i’m 16, so close to being able to leave but feeling the most trapped of all,
and then i’m 12, and all i can focus on is taking care of her,
and then i’m 5, and i just need her to love me, i need her to be happy with me.
and then i’m 26.
and i’m stone faced. and if someone happened to have seen the meltdown, i’m embarrassed, and if not, i pretend it never happened.
and i take my ollipop, and i close the bedroom door, and i turn on the tv,
and it’s almost like nothing happened,
except for the phantom aches in my heart.
