I initially began writing on this blog after my father’s passing. Writing helped me process many aspects of the grief I felt. I’m back at it again as today marks 1 month since my mother’s passing. I’ve followed the yellow brick road of emotions and it’s led me through unabashed grief and extreme vulnerability into what will hopefully be a new beginning. I feel an incredible sense of guilt and countless regrets that I didn’t expect I’d have over many things that seemed black and white at that time. I’ve learned about myself as I delve into the depths of my mind trying to break through the fog of shock. I force myself to pick up the unresolved things I put into mental storage when my father passed. I unwrap new complexities around my mother’s passing; the experience is wholly different than it was 7 years ago with him, yet also somehow very similar. I’ve decided to begin writing again because there is so much going on inside and I need to let it out.
This is a strange time in the world. Everyone is isolated. Frankly, I think everyone is out of sorts as our daily routines and lives were materially disrupted. It’s hard enough getting through the feelings of being overwhelmed, exhausted, and ready for change when it comes to COVID impacts and racial injustice. I feel the weight of all of it. It’s heavy. I have guilt that I’m not out protesting and using my voice like when I lived above Market Street in San Francisco between the Castro and Civic Center. I joined protests frequently then. My mental and emotional battle I’m fighting now is my own. I want to do more to fight for racial justice, but I’m saturated with minimal spare capacity for that, and I’m geographically further away from the epicenter of the protests this time.
I think of amazing memories of my mom that only in hindsight mean so much. I thought I had so many more moments with her. I think of the last time I visited her in November. I try to remember her features. I remember getting dropped off at the airport, and we hugged as I wheeled my bag in. It was always hard for her when I would have to go home after a visit, and she’d worry until I called her when I got home, no matter how much I didn’t want her to. I went back for a second hug this last time, and completely surprised her as she was already back in the front seat. I never do that. I just thought she needed it. And I did too, looking back.
I called my mother once a week, on the weekends. She could always call me, but she rarely did. Before she went into the hospital on March 9, our phone conversations averaged 5 minutes or so of mostly small talk. I found myself wanting to say more but not knowing what, wanting to hear more from her too. I found myself missing those conversations, as mundane and unsatisfying as they were. The rehab facilities where she stayed post-surgery had the pro of being COVID-free, which was a rarity, but they had a con of no phones in the rooms, and her very basic non-smart flip cell phone had gone MIA. I think about her, feeling alone, no iPhone to feel connected socially to her friends and family, no books to read, no friends where she was, in a bed, constantly in her head when she wasn’t sleeping. I tried reaching out, but the rehab facilities were like black holes with phone systems that function as a wormhole zooming you at warp speed to the wrong coordinates. I couldn’t reach her, so eventually I wrote a letter, and then sent her a Mother’s Day card. I regret not flying out when she asked me to make arrangements to go there on Mar 20. COVID had just blown up, and life had stopped. I didn’t want to risk my getting sick, but also, I didn’t want to expose her or family if I was exposed to it on a plane. Plus, that is when hospitals changed their visitor’s policy, disallowing them. So, I’d have been alone in her house, isolated more than I already am here.
All my mother wanted her whole life was to be my mom. She made my world her world. She sacrificed her interests and hobbies to cultivate my curiosity and the options available to me. She only ever wanted to be let in. And all I did was put up walls. I didn’t even tell her about this blog, and I blocked her from seeing posts when I would share my latest post. I even had to block my family in case they told her about it. So much of my identity was wrapped in learning to fly – asserting my fierce independence. I only realize now, I needed independence from my parents to figure out who I was. Independence is relative; it requires you to be independent OF something. Independent FROM someone. My life has been slowly (and ferociously) pushing her away, not letting her in, being an asshole kid. Being selfish. And now that the person from whom I needed to be independent isn’t here anymore, there is an overwhelming feeling of one of the largest aspects of my identity disappearing. There is fear. There is relief. I don’t have to hide or push away anymore. I need to relearn how to not be like that anymore.
I remember being at college, trying sumo wrestling suits for the first time, and tearing the ACL in my right knee after already having surgery on my left knee for the same injury in high school. Now if you know my mother as a driver, in the days before GPS, she got lost in a paper bag, and worse, worried herself over getting lost. When I told her I’d injured my other knee and was somehow supposed to move out of the dorms the next day to come home for summer, she was in a car on her way to me like September wildfire for the 4-hour drive. She found me, got to my dorm room, brought my crutches, and proceeded to help me move everything out of the dorm and take me home. She just did it. I regret not being able to return that kind, unconditional love instinct she showed me then. She drove to get to me despite being afraid and nervous about getting lost.
I used to say we fought like cats and dogs. I realize in hindsight we fought like cats and cats. I was more like her than I wanted to admit, which is why we fought for blood. Our relationship was complicated, and very painful words were exchanged. I found myself squeezing myself into a very defined role or persona I kept with her. I liken it to when you’re home with family, you usually sit at the same seat at the dining table with your relationships. I sat in the seat where I was like a synchronized swimmer. My life looked easy, effortless, and calm on the surface, while underneath I was frantically panicking and trying to keep afloat. She was so proud of me, and I didn’t feel worthy of that pride. I didn’t like when she talked about me to other people. I don’t want to be talked about, period. I’d get so mad at her when she’d betray my trust when she got a little too tipsy and started farting sunshine and vomiting rainbows about me. I took it for granted. I never doubted she loved me. However, I don’t know if she knew that I loved her too, even when I wasn’t happy with her.
Just before the end of March, after she’d been in the hospital a couple weeks and had her first surgery, I had a dream. My dad and I were sitting next to a hospital bed she occupied. My dad got up, and started walking away, presumably to get some air, or a coffee or something. My mom told me to go with my father and nodded nudgingly in his direction. I got up and began following him and turned around to look back at her. She was gone.
I think my subconscious was trying to prepare me for accepting what was to be the end of the world – hers, and to an extent, mine. The safety I felt of having someone who loved me unconditionally, whom I could always call to be there, disappeared. While friends and family have reached out to extend condolences and offer support, I still somehow feel smaller, more alone, and yet, relieved. I feel clarity.
When I was small, I had this untested hypothesis that when someone dies, they suddenly become omniscient and suddenly know everything about every instant of your life. Like they can watch the video of your life, even the moments they may have missed when they were alive. I was terrified that she would see through those walls I’d built and be disappointed in the real me. She’d feel disappointed I couldn’t tell her everything, or even most of what I’d experienced without her.
I feel like I did a shit job writing her obituary. I completely missed adding her work, which was a big part of her life. I even blanked on her mother’s family name. I don’t know that I could adequately sum her up on a page.
However, in some ways, dealing with my mother’s passing has had a similar impact on me as my father’s. I have made changes to my workout routine, changed eating and sleeping habits, quit drinking, started antidepressants again, and will begin seeing a therapist. I’m trying to work on me and be mentally, emotionally, and physically healthier so I don’t meet the same fate too early in life. However, there are good days and bad days and I don’t get to choose them sometimes. I’m getting at better when a day begins to go sour, salvaging it and still trying to make something of it, even if it’s small. I can’t even take things a day at a time. That’s too big a measure.
idigres 