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.