I carefully made my grocery list, adding the ingredients that I knew went into the dish I wanted to make. I remembered the ingredients almost like muscle memory but I wasn’t 100% sure. When it was almost time to put the dish together, I caught myself thinking that I could just ask Mama.
Oh the sting of knowing that I can’t just ask Mama. I can’t ask her the millions of other questions that have popped into my head. I can’t ask her about the names of every flower I see, since she knew their botanical name and their common names. I can’t ask her where the keys are to the shed. All the things I thought I would know, I sadly don’t and I’ve learned that I’m horribly ignorant.
I don’t know how to make my brain understand that she is gone. Not gone home to her house but gone to her eternal home. My mama simply isn’t where I can send her a text message or call her on the phone. The communication between this world and the next is far less sophisticated.
I wanted to call her and tell her how proud she would be of Grady at his high school graduation. I wanted to send her a text message with the picture of his new haircut. But I couldn’t. This grief truly comes in unpredictable waves that hit at the most ridiculous times. I cried at his graduation in the middle of the bleachers. While some people probably thought that I was an overly emotional mama, my two best friends who were with me knew that I was a grieving daughter. I’ve had to stand strong for as many hours of the day as possible for almost one whole month. When that facade cracks, I can’t control it. I want it to all be a bad dream and for cancer to have never beckoned to her.
Sadly, I can’t rewind time. I can’t change the uncontrollable. I have to find the new normal, and grieve my way through it. I know I did it when my dad died. I found ways to grieve in my car on my long drive home from work each day. For probably the first six months, I cried my whole way home from work. One time, a poor Georgia state patrol officer stopped me for a tail light that was out. When I rolled down my window, I had tears streaming down my face. He thought I was upset about being stopped until I told him that my dad had died and I was grieving. He felt so bad for me that I had to reassure him that it was all ok even if I was in my daily routine of grief. I’ll never forget the heartsick way he looked at me when he left my window. It’s the knowing look of grief.
Things were different when my dad died. I had my mom to help me keep my mind off of things. I didn’t feel so alone in the world like I do now. Who will love me now like my mama did? Who will be there for me when I have a colonoscopy and need a ride to the hospital? Who will encourage me when the world gets mean? I don’t have all the answers. I’m sure friends and family will fill the void when they can. But, it’s not the same.
I’m learning to navigate the world without mama. I’m trying to figure out the next steps of putting the period on the sentence of her life. And, I’m left with more questions for my own. I worry for my future and pray that I have enough of her in me to be strong enough to face whatever may come. I worry about taking care of her home while I decide on the next steps. I feel like I need a substitute mom to give me the push I need to do the things that need to be done. If I rush to close out her estate, does that mean that I’m ready for that chapter to end? If I take too long to settle things, does that mean that I’m lazy and unconcerned? I’ve never felt more overstimulated by life in all of my life. I didn’t even know that it could feel this way.
I didn’t finish the pickled shrimp. I couldn’t find a recipe that seemed to be the right one. I guess that’s a little like grief. Sometimes there just isn’t a right way. Sometimes we just have to wing it.
Messpot Diaries 