Alone - June 25, 2011

Five small letters, really.  But when you string them all together into the word "alone," it starts to mean a lot, clear context put into the definition of "separate; solitary; without aid or help."

I've spent most of my life "alone."  When I was in 2nd Grade, I became a latch-key kid, responsible for getting myself home safely, starting my homework, and going about the latter third of my day without supervision or companionship.  Even when my parents got home, I was generally relegated to my bedroom to wait until suppertime (and then to return there afterwards) or at the very least alone in my thoughts on my couch.  In college I had one roommate for six weeks, another two for an entire year that was broken up significantly by overnights with their fiance and boyfirend, and then I lived alone for two years.  The few years between then and moving to Kentucky, I was living with my mom but our schedules didn't really coordinate to where we spent a lot of time in the apartment together, and even when we were there, we were in separate rooms for any number of reasons. 

I get how to do alone; I'm an expert at it.  But, it sucks, and now more than ever because in the last couple of weeks I've realized that there's a vast difference between being independent (which is what I've just generally considered myself - and what I considered my definition of alone to be - my whole life) and actually being alone.  Being independent means that you can take care of yourself when the need arises.  Being alone means that you have no one to turn to when taking care of yourself gets too hard.  Or at least being alone feels like that.

At my mother's funeral, after we processed back up the aisle at the end of the service, I asked the minister what I was supposed to do.  He said I could either greet people as they left, or I could go to the basement where a luncheon was going to be served and greet people down there.  I knew some people wouldn't stay for the lunch, and I didn't want to miss thanking anyone for being there, so I stayed, gretting each person as they moved to the back of the church.  And I did it by myself, left there by my mother's sister who did not speak to me at all except to say goodbye as she left at the end of the day.  It was while standing there, taking full responsibility for closing out my mom's life with some "thank you"s, hand shakes, and hugs that I realized just how alone I am.

I have family, that's true, but I was an only child who really only had one parent.  And that parent is now gone.  The other family (some at the service and some not) might have stood with me if I'd asked, but I didn't.  That was me being independent, thinking that I could handle things on my own.  I could, of course, but not without getting that first niggling sensation of being really truly alone.

In the weeks since the funeral I've thought about this a lot because the feelings of being alone, that really truly alone, have begun to sink in.  After the friend who accompanied me back to Nebraska returned home, I welcomed the respite, but not for as long as I would have anticipated.  I wanted people around me.  I wanted the silence around me to be broken by something other than the TV.  I wanted someone to listen to me as I remembered the backstories behind the last boxes of pictures I brought back with me.  I wanted someone to suggest dinner, to eat with me.  I wanted anything, but any in-person contact I've had with anyone since getting home has been at my instigation.  No one is offering to take care of me (I guess I can't expect anyone to), but now I notice it more acutely.  Maybe those people were just giving me my space, allowing me to having the grieving time I needed.  Or maybe they just didn't know well enough to ask, to insert themselves into that void.  I'm not blaming anyone, and I can't say I haven't done/wouldn't do the same if on the same outside position.  But, either way it doesn't change the longing I've suddenly felt for something more than what is real.

I'm not sure that I'd know how to let someone take care of me after all those years of living so independently when I told myself over and over that I was enough, but I find myself wanting that caring more, and that's the cruel part.  Now that I want someone there, no one is.

Mixed Emotions - June 12, 2011

My mother died yesterday.

A lot of people I knew wouldn't even be able to function this soon after a loss like that, let alone blog about the experience, but I find that writing helps me process emotion, and over the last 24 hours, I've felt that if there really is a "right way" to grieve, I'm probably doing it wrong.

Don't get me wrong - I loved my mother.  But she and I were not particularly close in that "best friends, tell each other everything, she's the first person I called with any big news" kind of way.  Maybe it was because she was raised stoically (I don't really know; I never asked), or maybe it was because she was working so much when I was a child (she held two jobs for most of my life).  Whatever the reason, we didn't have a close relationship.  So though I am sad at the loss - several times today I've thought "it's weird that I've been in town this long and haven't even called her" even though I know why I'm here - and though I've cried at various points both during the trip back to Nebraska and since arriving, I've also found myself laughing and joking and trying to have a good time despite the circumstances.  And that feels odd if only under some kind of social construct that exists in my mind to say that I should be truly mourning and laughter and enjoyment of food and company somehow negates my love for my mother.

A friend of mine offered to make the trip to Nebraska with me even though when she left Pennsylvania, and we then left Kentucky, we didn't know how long we'd be here.  And having her along has been great because even in those moments of sadness, I have her to think about, to "live for" in some respects.  Today, after we'd picked up mom's few remaining belongings from the nursing home, we were driving back to town, and I was emotional.  Seeing the bed mom had passed in, and knowing that the only physical pieces of her left were in four storage boxes headed for the homeless shelter thrift store, I was a little choked up.  But needing to think of something else, I pointed out a roadside sign that I've passed numerous times in my life: an historical marker of the Oregon Trail.  Melissa slammed on the brakes and pulled a U-turn to get a picture of the most awesome computer game ever come to life.  And it made me laugh.  Hard.  We took pictures, put funny captions with them and posted them on Facebook.  Maybe that's not normal for a grieving child, but I was so thankful for that moment of hilarity.

Maybe it's because I've been mentally preparing for this moment for a little while that I can put some of that grief aside; it's grief that to some extent I faced when I made the decision to stop treatment and put her into hospice care.  The loss is still real and will continue to get more real, I guess, as time goes on and I really can't just pick up the phone, but I find myself not lost in it, and that's a comfort, even if it's maybe a little odd.