On Loss

Hello. I’ve been gone for months. It’s been a very difficult time. My elderly mother’s condition declined over the course of a year. She died 3/13/24. I’m not adding anymore info because she wouldn’t want me to put her out there. She was one of the most private people I know.

When my dad passed five years ago, I was still physically able to be there for dad as he was hospitalized. I tried to be there for my mom, too. That felt right even though it was so sad and hard on mom.

This season of life, with mom declining, the loss of my physical abilities didn’t allow me to be helpful at all, except what I could offer through my husband. Due to mental health problems, related to my chronic illness/pain, kept me from even being able to speak on the phone without crying for about a year. I eventually began seeing her once a week, texting and calling between visits. That’s the most I was able to do for the rest of her life. This did not feel right.

Fortunately, mom also had two other daughters, my wonderful sisters. They took care of everything and understood that I contributed as much as I could. This didn’t feel right because I fell so short of what I expected of myself.

The whole thing magnified my feelings of inadequacy, already accelerated as I struggled with managing and accepting my new life circumstance. By most measures, I was a disappointment, at least to myself, as a daughter. I beat myself up for this every day for three years, adding some serious shaming for the last.

She’s gone. Incredibly, my sisters were so organized that everything is done, settled.

Now, I find myself thinking of something I’d tell mom or see something funny and text her. Any significant anything was saved for conversation on Saturday. I am slowly letting go of expectations only I had. No longer am I imagining how done with me my sisters must be or what mom must think of me.

All of the punishment I meted out, as I ruminated on my sad performance, wore me down. My depression and anxiety both took serious damage, even as I felt more comfortable with my situation at home. My husband and sons are great support. I just couldn’t gain traction when I felt okay for a couple days.

Gradually, in the days following mom’s death, part of experiencing the loss of her is reminding myself I don’t need to worry about when and how much I should try to contact her. This and more had been a regular loop in my head for a really long time. Now, it served absolutely no purpose, as if it ever had.

I had a beautiful time with my mom in the last hours of her life. I told her I loved her and that I knew she loved me, too. Her eyebrows raised and, when I spoke about my husband and sons, telling her favorite story of babysitting my two boys, her jaw moved and she moved her mouth. She was definitely hearing me and reacting. That felt so right.

I cry every day about something that reminds me of her or I talk about her, but there is a lightness in the place where I stored all those shots I’d landed, bruising myself. Enough. I can rest in memories of her. May she rest in peace.