We subscribe to a magazine called The Week which is kind of like a Cliff's Notes for the news. It's delivered to our home on a weekly basis, and essentially encapsulates all the week's events as written by editors and reporters from all over the world. And it covers so much more than the news...it includes music and theater reviews, art exhibit openings, restaurant reviews, health news, etc. It's a fun, short read and in every issue they have a segment called 'The Last Word'. This is usually a shortened version of a story that appeared elsewhere like the NY Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Harper's, etc.
The latest issue's 'The Last Word' is titled 'The True Nature of Mourning' written by a woman who's mother died this past December. Although I read it with great interest, I found it to be more technical than I had hoped. But, this writer did mention two things that really, really resonated with me: first, she said that although she appreciated everyone's well wishes and offerings that time will make her grief better, she didn't want her grief to subside...she wasn't ready. And second, in the time since her mom died, she has found herself hiking alone in the desert, feeling her mom's presence, and being moved to tears.
In the first time in a long time, I felt like I could totally relate to what someone else was saying and feeling regarding a huge loss like the death of a mother. Granted, I found much of the article to be uninspiring, but these two observations she mentioned were right in line with my own experience. OK, so I haven't been hiking alone in the desert but I do recall my spring, summer and fall runs outside last year. It was during this time...these three miles of running by myself with nothing but my iPod...that I felt really close to my mom. And after every run, I would walk around our cul-de-sac to cool down with tears streaming down my face. I had to wait to stop crying before I entered the house because I didn't want to have to explain to Ethan why I was crying. The answer was so much more than 'I miss Nana.'
And then there is the grief and the feeling that I didn't want it to subside. I was scared of what it would mean to 'get on with things' and not have that nagging pain. I was so glad to read that I was not the only one with this sentiment, and that maybe that feeling isn't as crazy as it appears to be on the surface. Sure, the sharpness of the pain has dulled and it isn't as immediate as it once was, but it is still ever so present.
Lately, however, it has been more pronounced than in the recent past and I'm not sure why. Someone once told me that the second year after a loss can be even harder than the first year, and I remember thinking 'there's no way.' But in recent days and weeks, I can see how at times, that might be true. One day I can accept her death, the next day I cannot. It's weird. I guess going through the milestones once is not enough to make the emptiness go away.
We had our second Passover without her tonight. In years past, I would get a phone call from my Mom weeks in advance of whatever holiday was approaching asking if we were going to be in town, and if so, that we would do it at their place. I miss those phone calls. We'd have the traditional holiday meals...matzo ball soup, brisket, kugel, etc., and I always knew that to my Mom, the best part of the holiday was being together. I miss her appreciation for the holiday and her exuberance of having us all there. Of course, it's nice that we got together tonight - as we have at other holidays over the past year - to remember the Jews' exodus from Egypt and eat brisket. But I must admit that, like other holidays over the last 15 months, something (or someone) was missing.
And so it is.
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