365 days

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of my mother's death.

It still seems so surreal. Although a whole year has passed, I find that I am still in the grieving process. As the one year marker approached, I dreaded its' coming, as if somehow it would solidify the fact of her death even more, make it irreversible. Sometimes it feels as if a lot of time has passed, sometimes it feels like no time at all. She often shows up in my dreams, always alive.
I remember every second of the day that she died. I remember getting to the hospice in the morning and finding her in a state of severe and grave agitation. Just the night before she seemed fine. Sick, but not this close to death. Now her eyes were black and wide as saucers. She could barely speak. She was gasping wildly for air. They had to keep giving her sedatives to calm her down so she could find some semblance of relaxation, but it was impossible. I kneeled beside her bed and held her hand. I told her over and over how much I loved her. Her last words to me were "I love you". She rasped them out, pushing them like deep exhalations and I could see it took great effort. I wanted to be there with her, for her. Looking back now, I realize how beautiful it is for her last words to be "I love you".
The rest was awful for me, so no need to recount it here. Suffice it to say I've had a very difficult time dealing with it. There were (are) so many accompanying emotions to losing someone close to you, especially if you were their caretaker, such as I was with my mom. You feel pain, fear, anger, denial, shock, yearning, guilt, humiliation, disbelief and all of the above again and again, with emphasis and power. There have been times in the past year where I have even begun to doubt my own mental health. I have found through reading and grief counsel that this is all normal. I have found, also, that the grieving process is different for everyone and that it is entirely normal to still be grieving after a year has passed. No one is on a specific time-line. Your whole life changes when you lose someone very close to you.

Perhaps one of the most difficult things for me to deal with throughout the grieving process was my apparent loss of faith. I became obsessed with death and the afterlife (or worse... a lack of one). I was forced to confront death, life and what it all means. I had to look deeper into the nature and purpose of life and what I came up with were a ton of questions, all confusing and scary, and with no concrete answers. What is the nature of that energy, that power, that consciousness which, when it was in that body, caused it to think, speak, move, love, feel and create? Now that it is gone, there is a mass of cells that will soon decompose, or as in her case be cremated. What then? What is life? What is its purpose? Before all of this happened my Christian faith comforted and carried me. I never thought much of those things. They all seemed too far away and I accepted with blind faith that when we die we would be with God. Now, I feel so far from God, and I wonder, to my horror, if God could be something we humans devise to make ourselves feel better. I have friends that believe this very firmly. I do not. Doubting God's existence feels horrible to me, like blasphemy, and then I feel guilty and bad for thinking these thoughts, so I pray, and find little or no comfort. Why?

A couple of weeks ago I was surprised to hear from an old boyfriend of mine. I had not seen him in 15 years or so. He lives in Japan. I had never expected to hear from him again, so it was quite a surprise. It was really wonderful to see him and I left our meeting with a feeling of hope and strength. He had lost a son in a horrible way and it broke my heart to hear his story. But he looked so well, so healthy and it seemed as if he was in a very good place, a very strong, solid frame of mind. Of course he had had more time to deal with his loss than I have, but still, I felt comfort and goodness in the fact that he was doing well and hope that I would be too. His parting words to me were advice to not take the holidays so hard. He reminded me that it was a man-made construct. It means nothing, he said. My mother was born on Christmas day. My faith dictates that it does not mean nothing, as it is also the day we celebrate the birth of our Lord. Perhaps it is easier for Ted to retain that line of thinking. He is a very free spirit. He practices Buddhism. But... I appreciated his advice and I plan to put it into action. No one can help me do this but myself. I can decide how I live from here on out.

I never intended this blog to turn into a blog about depression and loss. Originally I thought I'd share all of my kooky finds, my thoughts, my art, stories and inspirations here. It has turned into something sad because my life has been something sad for quite some time now. I know it is up to me and me alone to change that. I intend to live every day like it is a gift, because it is. I will begin trying as of now. Yesterday I bought a sequoia redwood tree. I plan on planting it in memory of my mom. It is a native Californian species, so it makes a perfect tree for my native California born mother. I'll sneak it into an inconspicuous place on the coast, somewhere where it won't harm anything around it by growing into a huge and majestic thing. I also bought 3 small beautiful succulent plants, ones I don't already have in my garden. I bought them to symbolize the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. I planted them this afternoon in a terra cotta pot and added them to my garden. I do not want to lose my faith, even while I question it.