Good-bye, Mom

     Hi Everyone! I can't believe it's been almost 3 months since my last post. It's hard to know where to even start. Six weeks ago my mom died unexpectedly. It's been a somewhat surreal experience because it doesn't really feel like she's gone. There's so many things I could say. Our relationship was complicated because she had Borderline Personality Disorder, but thankfully, we were in a reasonably good place when she died. My 19 year old daughter, Kelley, is taking this the hardest because out of all my kids, she was the closest to my mom.
      I guess I'm grieving, but it doesn't feel like I expected. I've read about the stages of grief and the order they're supposed to occur, but that just hasn't been my experience. I cried a lot the first day and off and on over that week. But I'm also happy for her. I know where she is, and now, she's finally free from physical and emotional pain and fears. She struggled with so many things: addictions, relationships, self-worth, multiple phobias and anxiety as well as constant pain. I'm pretty sure she also had ADHD, so she also struggled with organization and cleanliness, was often frustrated and impatient with herself and others, and started multiple projects that never got finished. And that was all before the dementia began.
      I'm happy for her not having to suffer through progressively worsening dementia or lingering on the edge of death for days or weeks. She went peacefully in her sleep. No pain. No struggle according to the nurse. I fully believe that's true because when I saw her, she honestly just looked like she was sleeping. Her face was completely relaxed. I do wish we could have been with her when she went, but Jim and I did spend time with her the day before she died.
     I'm not devastated or in despair, most likely because she really wasn't a part of my daily life. She wasn't one of those moms that you seek advice or wisdom from. She has always been very child like. I was more the parent figure from as far back as I can remember, but it doesn't feel like losing a child either. I can't even imagine the depth of sorrow that would be, and I pray I never will know. Honestly, often I resented her for not being a typical mom because the pain of never having that healthy "mothering" has left deep soul wounds that have become part of my inner tapestry. But she couldn't be what she didn't know. How can anyone be expected to read a book when they don't know the alphabet or even have a clue that those letters symbolize sound?
     Surprisingly, I mostly just feel a kind of blah affect. I'm not super sad just sometimes find myself experiencing a slight emptiness, like a small hole. I still can enjoy things. I function. I don't constantly think about my mom, but it's like something is just slightly askew, and I have no idea if this is normal. Not that it really matters, but sometimes I wonder.
      I do find that I'm much more sensitive these days to even the slightest hint of criticism, and I've had a lot of trouble sleeping. I feel less connected to people. I'm off kilter with my prior patterns. I think I gained weight over those first couple of weeks, but now I've dropped it (which is good) but only because I've skipped several meals over this past week, and when I do eat, it's not usually anything healthy.
     But it's not all because of my mom, although indirectly it is. There was so much to do after she died, and I have no siblings, so it was all on me to make the decisions and most of the arrangements, though family and friends did help with some details. Because of this, I got behind in my classes, which move at such an intense pace even when I'm able to work on them as planned. So now, I have a very limited time to catch up. In order to be able to do that, I've stopped all my outside activities and most of my inside ones too (no cooking, no cleaning, no grocery shopping, etc.) so I can use the time to work. I really should be working right now, but sometimes I just have to take a break for a little bit and do something different. There comes a point when you are studying hour after hour, day after day, that you begin to burn out and start getting diminishing returns for all your effort. So my abrupt change of schedule could also be causing my weird feelings and disrupted sleep. Or maybe it's a combo. Or just age. This is all new to me. Losing my mom. Being in grad school. Being this age.
     When my mom was younger, she was a dancer. She took ballet lessons for several years. I'm sure people who only knew her as an older, morbidly obese, wheelchair bound woman would be quite surprised at the graceful amateur ballerina she was as a teenager. Her love of ballet as an art continued even through her final days. When I think of her leaving this earth and rising to heaven, there's a line from a song that goes, "With your final heartbeat, kiss the world good-bye. Then go to peace and life on glory's side. Fly to Jesus, fly to Jesus, fly to Jesus, and live." I know that's what she did on that cold winter Monday morning in February. I'm also fairly certain that not too much longer after arriving in the presence of the Lord, she must have danced in the most beautiful impromptu pas seul (solo dance), her ballerina soul finally able to freely leap in completely unhindered joy. That image makes me smile through the tears, for I know that someday I'll be there to watch her too, even though for now, I've had to say, "Good-bye, Mom."

Sue Nan Burch Wyckoff (July 30, 1943 - February 4, 2019)