winding this up -

i'm distributing my readings and books on grief. i can feel the torn fibers wanting to heal in my heart and i'm doing what i can to encourage that. i have worked so hard on this mourning stuff and, guardedly, i can say i feel a forward movement. and i am recognizing that the days that i don't want to get out of bed or talk to anyone or do anything much but cry, those periods of time are lengthening. i don't miss my mom any less, i will never miss my mom any less, but those times of howling wilderness, they visit me less. and, again, for that i am grateful.

grief and mourning, my experience of these in any case, i see as kind of a metronome. life swings way far to the joys of life; these times are the good punctuations in my life; love, good good times; EXTRA good times. and that weight swings over, from time to time, and totally out of my control, to the other side: loss, sadness, death. but mostly life is spent in that middle place, going from one to the other and thank god for that.

i have always been a big fan of Life with the capital L - but i've done that in frank denial about the loss end of this thing. i saw the sad/loss part as the "other," not part of my own experience, an interruption of it. but to take the buddhist view of it - it is the whole thing. it is no less part of my life than the parts i would accept invitations from. and it's the part that makes the ordinary life and the extraordinary life appear so Technicolor for me.

doesn't mean it doesn't suck and hurt and feel like shiat - but that's part of it too.

the whole enchilada.

another house dream ..

this time, my mom was by herself (where was dad? i don't know), and she had bought this HUGE house, with so many suites of apartments, each one with its own kitchen. and each one was stupendously grand and gorgeous and i had no idea how my mom was going to pay for this house. in the dream i was trying to figure out how much her monthly payments would be - $10,000 a month? more? in my dream, she was very removed from this concern. i could not figure out exactly what all these rooms were for.

dwelling dreams.

a dream that haunted me for the day from a few days ago: i was at a landmark forum meeting - you would have to know what this is - and in my dream, somebody came in and massacred everyone - including me. but then i was alive and trying to get out, and i was trying to escape something terrifying that was chasing me through some woods. this is quite an amalgam of dreams, i think.

there's no way to avoid it, it seems

this week, my cubicle-mate at work lost her sister after a long illness - a sister who was also a best friend. i have heard them laugh together every day and whisper over family secrets. i know that my friend is relieved her sister isn't suffering anymore, but she has been just dreading this end.

so, i thought - WELL, at least i won't have to suffer THAT loss, the loss of a sister. but you know, i have many girl-friends, and they ARE my sisters, they have always been my stand-in sisters. when i was a kid, i used to imagine i had sisters, lots of them; younger, older, twin sisters. the last death of a friend was when i was a teenager. but nothing since and that's because i've been lucky that way.

but i will be grieving many losses of sisters; i can see that now. just when i think i've got an "out" to avoid grieving, i understand that there is no such thing in this life.

regret teaches me

this is one of those things i knew before but didn't really KNOW before, or at least understand it fully.

my dad and i have had regrets surrounding the end of my mom's life; he had his and i had mine. and in trying to comfort him about his, i've had a moment of clarity about my own and how, ideally, i would like to live my life.

regarding my wonderful dad, i told him that he couldn't personally, tom-to-judy, ask forgiveness of my mom or give it either. that moment was gone, and at some point he might like to take himself off that hook. me, among some other things, i really, really wish i had taken her on a day trip to Poipu beach on Kaui. she didn't go because, according to the information, it wasn't a flat, easy surface. but she had been to poipu beach; she had stayed with my dad at the hotel that is on it. i could have made it happen. but, because i wanted, really, an afternoon by myself, like a nurse away from her case, i didn't take her with me. and i regret this.

but neither my dad nor i knew that we were all in her final weeks of life. had we known, we would have acted differently; i know this because we loved her so much. we never meant to be cruel; we were just being human. and just this morning, because sometimes i'm a slow learner, i really got that we should all treat each other as terminal cases - because that's the case, isn't it? i didn't know i'd never get another chance to get it right with my mom with Poipu beach; but i should have acted as though i did know. and i should, and will try, to extend that to all whom i come upon.

a kindred spirit - Meghan O'Rourke

somebody at work printed off an article from an on-line magazine - a writer from Slate - lost her mother just a few months ago - there were six essays - and each one of them resonated with me - she also has been going through didion and cs lewis - and also shakespeare - hamlet wasn't depressed, he was grieving the death of his father! meghan writes, in the second article, that a friend asks, "Have you found a metaphor?""A metaphor?""Have you found your metaphor for where your mother is?" and i loved the idea of this. Meghan writes that her mother is the wind - not like the wind, but she is, indeed, in the wind - she can speak to her mother there. of course, she "needs to experience my mother's presence in the world around me and not just in my head," but she acknowledges that the metaphor is an option and having her "in the world" is not. i think this is lovely and true. and it spoke to me. it spoke to me enough that, as i have done several times this year, i found her email and wrote what her words had meant to me - and this is what i shared, also shakespeare:
Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak Whispers the o're-fraught heart, and bids it break.

i am so tired tonight -

my fatigue can be more tied into what's going on emotionally for me than how much sleep i get - which is plenty. i come home some days, and i don't even take off my jacket or get anything to eat - i just crash on the couch until i get the urge to go to bed. and i haven't been going to friday-night yoga. takes too much energy just now.

i wish there were eight days in the week - i would devote one of them to nothing but sleeping.

love, christine

we're coming to the day - one whole year

my dad and i are coming to the anniversary of my mom's death. i am writing a "thank-you/tribute" that i'll be sending out, if i can get past the wordiness of it. i find that i can edit down and edit down and it's STILL longer than i wish it to be. i make every word fight for its life in a lot of stuff i write. and especially about my mom. my mother loved good writing - concise, spare, terse. she never read any of MY writing, though. would she think i was too "out there" with my heart? that would have been too sloppy for her - say it and move on. say it with less words and move on.

mom, i am trying, i truly am.

xx, christine