Extremely Honest

Why are we all dishonest?

Honesty is a rare commodity.  I think that I've worked for some of the biggest liars in the state of NJ.  That's right, I'm not afraid to say it.
My experience working in the corporate world has not been positive.  I've been lied too, told to lie, cajoled into fudging the truth, expected to accept lies...

I don't have a whole ton of faith in people.  The thing is these aren't "evil" people.  No,  these folks are affluent upstanding citizens.
In sending out my resume, I've been thinking about my past work experiences.  Yeah, I've worked for a whole bunch of dishonest assholes.  It's enough to make me lose faith in human beings. 

Five years ago, after getting laid off by a dishonest businessman, I swore that I would never again work in an office.  I had done what I had to do to support myself, but I always felt that I was not contributing anything of value to society.`

Do we all have to just come to the conclusion that in order to live, we have to compromise our own morals?  When does that happen? 

 Last night I think we hit negative temperatures here in Kinnelon. 

It was so cold in my house that there was frost on the inside of my front windows.  Yeah, I can't afford heat.

At first I was horrified to be so poor that I can't plunk down the money for oil(even though it's cheaper than last year), but now I just think if only I can make it through to March everything will be fine. 
My boyfriend gave me an electric heater, I've got an electric blanket and four cats and a dog who sleep next to me at night...and on nights he's here James the human furnace keeps me warm. (Thanks baby, I wish you were next to me every night!)

But I don't really know.  In fact I really don't know anything these days. 

I always feel the need to explain my actions to people, like if I don't they won't like me or something, or worse yet they might even(gasp) judge me.  I've never been good at accepting help at all either.  People think that maybe I'm too prideful to accept help, but it's not that.  It's more that I don't like feeling that anyone has control over me except myself.  Strings are always attached to any help that I've received.  Maybe I just look at the world in a fucked up way, who knows.

So, I prefer to manage my life on my own. 

What is the hardest for me is glimpsing into other people's lives and seeing their fabulous lives played out online.  Okay, the thing is we all seem to try to spin our lives to impress these days.  I don't get it. 

Is it competition?  Is it insecurity?  I would really like to know. 
Me?  Well I'm just trying to stay alive.

In a little while, I'm going to my current job taking care of an elderly man.  I love my job, the only problem is I don't make enough money at all.  Hence the NO heat situation.

The strange thing is that I know someday, I will look back on this time, not with fondness, but with an appreciation for others. 

We never know what other people are experiencing on a day to day basis. 

~~~~~~~
I've been thinking about my Mom a lot.  How this time two years ago, she started to really go downhill. 

How I've always worried that I would become like Little Edie from Grey Gardens.
In fact this summer I was following the "Grey Gardens Guide to Landscaping." 

 

I think that it's hard for people to understand the loss of a parent in a brutal way.  The twisted mother/daughter symbiosis that occurs.  The regrets, longing, unspoken words, changed futures...but maybe I'm just a morbid person who doesn't deserve certain things in life.

I was reading Brooke Shield's memoir about her mother and herself.  Even though my  Mom was not an alcoholic or anything close to that, our relationship was fraught with very similar issues.   She also references Grey Gardens.  I found it to be hilarious.  I was living the same way, Brooke.  The same freaking way.

Being an only child for five years, I was all parts of my Mom's world.  Our lives were so intertwined that when it came time for me to go to Kindergarten I used to cry that I wouldn't be home with my Mommy.   I always loved the story of my birth, how she would tell me that I slept right next to her, or how she wanted a daughter so much, but was too afraid to hope for one.

My father worked nights when I was little, so I slept in my Mom's bed next to her for years.   Up until I was about twelve, I would wake up with bad dreams and crawl into bed with my Mom. 

In her last months, when she couldn't get out of her bed, I slept beside her again.  There was something comforting in knowing that she was near me.  I've been longing to sleep next to my Mom again, to feel safe and whole.  To have her kiss me goodnight and touch my hair, call me "Sari".    We fought so much at times.  The last few months of her life, we had disagreements and her fear pervaded my own existence.  Yet, she always asked, "Where is Sarah?" if I wasn't around, or "Sarah will take care of such and such."   

And I don't care if people think I should be over this loss by now.  Can you ever really get over losing your Mother???

This is just me, being honest.

There are days, when I can't get out of my bed(her bed) because I miss her so very much.  There are days when I curse her and am angry at things she did or didn't do.  But mostly I remember her with love.  Sometimes I wish that she'd been a "Mommy Dearest" so I wouldn't miss her soo much.

What wouldn't I give to hear her sing, "Summertime and the livin' is easy...hush little baby don't you cry?"

Can't Buy Me...Love? Happiness? Long Life?

We aren’t really supposed to talk about money.  It’s not proper or fitting or socially acceptable in some circles.  Folks like to whisper about who’s got it or who doesn’t.  At least that was what I experienced in my “church circle” of friends.  Those who were on the fringes of poverty and required assistance from the church community were viewed as being a bit of an underclass.  Heck, I experienced it firsthand at times when my Mom required financial assistance.  But, I believe that giving to others in need is paramount of this thing we label as “Christianity”. 

The news was reporting the past couple days about a woman who left her baby on a subway.  She was homeless and said that she couldn’t take care of her baby anymore.  I don’t know the whole story, but it got me thinking.  She could be me, she could be any of us. I could be homeless.

From the outside looking in, I appear to have plenty.  In fact someone once told me I was privileged.  Why was I privileged?  Because last year when my Mother died I inherited a house worth over half a million dollars.  

This doesn’t mean that I have that money in hand.  In fact, I have less than when I inherited it last year. The small amount of money she left barely paid for her funeral expenses, some utility bills and I still have outstanding health bills coming in the mail.

After taking care of a terminally ill parent for almost a year(try finding gainful employment while someone is at home dying) I accepted the first job I was offered. 

And most of my paychecks went into maintaining my  inheritance. 

I inherited mortgage payments, a high tax load, expensive oil heating, a dog and various other maintenance costs on a house.  Between these costs, the cost of gas to commute,  I barely had enough to pay any other bills. 

I was also in a deep state of grief, but I was pretending that I was OKAY.

So, I kept going, doing…striving.  I was not going to allow myself to fall into any type of depression or sadness.  I knew that I must be positive.  I focused on other people’s problems or things to distract me from feeling the real sadness.

Then my father got arrested. 

In under eight months time, both of my parents were gone.  And I do not have family who live near me.  I am by myself. 

I nearly lost my mind.  Bad thoughts crept in, thoughts such as, maybe I should just die.  Not that I would kill myself, but maybe just maybe a truck might hit me on the highway.  I only told a couple people about these thoughts.

Each day was a struggle to pull myself out of my bed and drive to a job full of banality and lack of purpose.  I would sit at a desk staring at two screens, barely able to remember my own name at times.  I would start crying and have to spend twenty minutes in a bathroom stall trying to compose myself.  It was as if I had been through an intense battle, come out on the other side feeling relieved, yet sad to have witnessed such horrific suffering.  I guess it was a type of PTSD. 

Counseling may have been an option, checking myself into a facility was another possibility. The only thing that kept me going and gave me purpose was writing.  However, the grief I felt just kept slamming me.  

I hated not being able to function.  Each day dragging myself to an office, stressful commute, I was losing my mind.

 So I quit my job.  I simply couldn’t do it anymore.  And I don’t feel guilty.  I needed time to grieve, to realize that my Mom is gone and there is nothing I can do to change that fact.  All that I can do is my best.  Of course, money is a problem.  However, I always have a way of getting money, making money when I need it.  It's kind of my special power.

Right now,  I have 3.58$ in my bank account.  I’m working a part-time job that has yet to pay me.  I’m still going.  I haven’t “bought” food in three weeks, I’m eating what I’ve got in my cupboards.  I’m not worried about the carbs, the GMO’s, the wheat, the sugar…I’m just worried that I have food to put into my body.  I won’t starve.

I calculate how much gas it will take me to get to work.  That’s what I’ve done this summer.  I haven’t gone to the beach or on a nice vacation or a hike. I am surviving, in a half a million dollar house.

My story is NOT unique.  I have a college degree that took my thirteen years to accomplish.  I am $30K in debt. How many of my peers still live in their parent’s homes because the cost of rent is astronomically?  I bet I could name four people…and they’re married.  My generation was brought up in this bubble of middle classdom, a privilege that not many will have ever again.  We were conditioned to go into debt in order to “get an education”, unless you were lucky enough to have your parents pay for part or the whole.

The sad thing is, I’m not afraid to work hard.  I’m not lazy.  I’ve had jobs since I was twelve years old.  I’ve been self-reliant.  This isn’t a complaint, its more of an understanding that life is hard.   

Six years ago without a college degree, I made almost double what I was making this past year.  Then in 2008 the work just dried up, I got laid off. 

Now, why am I writing about any of this?  I will tell you.  Because I’m tired of pretending.  I want to scream out, LOOK I’m poor and it is OKAY. 

But, what I’m saying is look around.  There are some major problems with our governmental system.  Apparently, jobs are on the rise, but what jobs.  Full-time, with decent living wage, health benefits??? No.  

And I’ve been thinking about all of this for a long while…and it hit me.  Over 600,000 people in our country are homeless . We live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Tell me, how the fuck do we have people with nowhere to live???  There is this idea that the homeless are lazy people who don’t want to work.  This is not true.  Many people who are homeless have jobs, but cannot afford a place to live.  How is this possible?  In 2014, in the United States of America, we  fund all kinds of strange things, but we cannot fund a place for those Americans down on their luck.  Ask someone homeless where do they want to be in five years...probably will say ALIVE.

I’ve always hated when people ask you where you’d like to be in five years.  It makes me think of something John Lennon said when he was asked what he wanted to be when he grew up and he said something like, “Can’t I just be happy?”  Which is funny because apparently those who make between $50-75K a year are the happiest so says Forbes.  

While I don’t believe in entitlement of the poor or the wealthy, I do believe that everyone should have a place to sleep, food in their bellies and happiness.  But the religious side in me says, we live in a fallen world.  There is real evil out there, but how many of us support that evil by doing nothing to stop it?  We do nothing to stop it. 

I have only 3.58$ in my bank account.  My statement denotes two things, one that I actually have a bank account, that I have a social security number, that I did have a way to put money in there…so many people on the fringes of society do not even have bank accounts.  They are not eligible for them.   In some ways not having a bank account, or credit cards, or student loans would be an amazing, freeing feeling for me. 

Kate grew up very poor.  She would tell me stories of living in housing projects, roaches, sharing bedrooms with many siblings.  A man she was in love even decided not to marry her because his parents didn’t approve of her background.  (this was a “Christian” man of course.)  She was always afraid of lack, even though she was a hardworker, with a college degree, my Mom never really thought much of herself.  I think it was because she spent so many years ashamed of where she came from.

People are so often ashamed to be poor, but I believe that those who are wealthy and do nothing to help others are the ones who should be ashamed.  And for the record, I put myself in the “wealthy” category.  I wish that I could give more.

But, I guess in some ways I am privileged.  I am privileged enough to care about other people.  While I've been told that I am too nice, I've come to realize that maybe what I've been made to think of as a flaw is actually my secret strength.  Each day is precious, every life is precious, poor or rich, white, black, brown or yellow, we all deserve to treat each other with respect.

Like A Butterfly...She Flies Away...

I don't eat much, and then I drink too much vodka. I throw up.

I am alone in my dead mother's house, in her bed, in her room and this sadness is too extreme. 

I am not  in my own body.   This is NOT my life.

I am disappearing.  Just a blob of raw open wounds.

Eleven months. My own insignificance in the face of all things holy.

I think...
how her body grew smaller, until it ceased to exist.
How I was not ready.
I sob.

No, I weep like I haven't allowed myself in these past few months.


I let go, no one to see, no one to hear...my grief takes over.  And I fall asleep.

~~~~~~~~~

My heart has turned a corner.  It took me eleven months to allow myself to hit bottom.

The Holidays were not terrible, I smiled for Mother's Day and cried a bit on her birthday.  But now there is only one more milestone.  Her death day.

The month of June is full of weddings, anniversaries, christenings, communions, graduations...all these milestones.  

Tomorrow my niece(Beepboop, Bebe, Bee, Beeper, Beatrix) is getting baptized.

We mark time through events.  

I am tired.  Tired of being tired, of not having any answers in life.  Tired of living in a dead woman's house, of pretending that I am fine.  Pretending that I am strong and vital, that I don't need people, that I don't need the sacred marking of time.

Dying people are like butterflies.  In Auschwitz they found drawings of butterflies all over, but aren't we all just butterflies really?  We start as one thing and life, love, grief, what happens next in our cocoon?

And dying people are here to teach us something.  They are here to teach us to live.

To live as though we are the dying, because we are. 

I am raw.  I am vulnerable.  I'm accepting this.

My thoughts are on the sacredness of all things, my niece tomorrow will have a Priest baptize her into the Roman Catholic Church.   I am her sponsor/godmother, and I take that role to my heart.  I pray that I can share with her the beauty that was her Grandmother.  I hope that she will know Kate through me.  I pray that she will love the sacred things in life.  Birth, and death--are the same just reversed.    

And Beatrix, I cannot wait to see what a beautiful Butterfly you will be.

Tomorrow, in a holy place, I know my Mom will be there with us.

Songbird was played at my Mom's memorial...it's brought me healing over the past few months.

Many Faces, Many Phases

Each day I am evolving into someone, something new.

June 27 was the day that nothing would ever be the same.  And see in that moment, I knew it was all different.  Not different like most would think, but different in the way the world looks at night versus how it looks in the morning.

See  how life ebbs and flows,  we believe that we are changing things, but really we are the ones who are changing.

I am not a thinker.  I am a feeler.


I feel things.  I see a person crying, chances are I'm going to start crying too.

Since my own ordeal, I've come into contact with folks who are experiencing loss in varied ways.  I tell them, ten days or ten months, there is no limit to grief.

Here's my list of things NOT to say to a person grieving:

1. You really should go to a counselor.

Damn!  I wish that I had a dollar for each time I've heard this over the past year.  Chances are if I am going through a rough patch, deep sadness, no hope for the future, near suicidal depression, an aching longing for a person who no longer physically exists, talking to a counselor may help.  But I know that.
You know what people deep in grief really need?  A friend who doesn't make them feel as though they are just some broken toy who needs a quick psychological fix.

A grieving person, needs two things.  Validation that it is OKAY to be sad, and probably a nice hug.  Yeah hug someone in pain, it does amazing things.  NOW after doing the above things and coming alongside a person in deep grief, then saying to them maybe it would help if you went to a counselor, they will be more apt to accept that.

But let me tell you there are only two people out of the ten I know who have suggested that to me where I haven't immediately regretted even letting them know how sad I really am.  Advice like that just makes me want to isolate in order not to feel judged.

Counselors are a great tool, but they do not have a magic wand which will automatically make me un-sad.  It just doesn't work that way.

2.  It's been ....blah blah blah so long since etc. or this person I know was better in six months.

Everyone is different.  I bet that person you thought was doing great was probably just pretending because they were tired of others acting wanting them to stop grieving.
The vulnerability for those in grief is very high.  Grieving people don't WANT to feel the way they do, but loss is tricky.  There are triggers.
You see that person who has died/left in places all over.  A song.  A smell.  Certain foods.  Special days...
Grieving people have constant reminders of the one who is gone.  There is no limit to healing, certain losses will ALWAYS be there.  They don't go away.

Please don't judge those who are going through loss.  For most of us depending on the vastness of the trauma just being able to crawl out of bed and feed ourselves(sometimes I barely do that) is an act of sheer will.

Feeling sad, missing someone, trying to deal with the aftermath of a death, executing a will, selling an estate, making plans, getting rid of a dead person's clothes...these are all extremely exhausting undertakings.

Throw in many other stresses, such as money issues, and you have a perfect storm.


3. People who are grieving, are not just grieving the loss of a person.  They are grieving the future that will never be.

Here's an interesting example of how different people are.  My sister and I both lost a mother last year.   We share the same grief, but we are grieving different losses.   She grieves her son's grandmother who almost got to see him, but didn't.
I grieve knowing that when I get married someday she won't be there.
See how those are different but kind of the same?

We both grieve memories that will never happen now.

4. "I know what you're going through, I felt... when my Grandma/Great-Aunt/Cousin etc died. " Grief is not a competition.  

No. You don't know how I feel.

Please don't tell me how sad you were when your Great-Aunt Whatsherface died.  I'm sure your Great-Aunt Whatsherface was a wonderful person, and I'm sure that you were very sad, I can understand that and I will grieve with you, but I don't want a comparing of losses.

Folks trying to one-up someone's sadness, is narcissism to the extreme.  Just like I don't know what it is like to go through a divorce, lose a husband, or have a seriously ill child, unless you too have lost your mother or father, a parent, don't patronize me.

If you have lost a mother don't be afraid to tell me, we can share that together.

5. Grieving people are not downers, they're just sad.

After I had found out that my Mom's cancer had returned I was talking to someone when a "friend" came into the room and told me to stop talking about such depressing things.

That person is no longer one of my friends.

Suffering is real.  We are such complicated creatures.  So afraid to let others know if and when we are suffering, because we don't want to appear weak.  I like to say that I have a fragile strength.

If you're suffering physically, spiritually, emotionally...you are not weak.  You are human.

Watching someone die, losing anyone you love to Alzheimer's or death or moving away or anything can really take a toll on your emotions.  But don't shut down.  Allow the sadness, but don't forget the bits of joy in each day too.

How to reach out to a sad grieving friend? Acknowledge their suffering, offer them kindness, never judge their progress, and don't indulge their sadness.  The last one is tricky.  I've known folks who are truly incapable of having a positive thought, but guess what??  It isn't your job to change them!!


OKAY.

So those are just some simple observations I've made over the past year.  And
no, I still have not seen a counselor
yes, I am sad
no, not everyday
yes, I have fragile strength
no, I am not going to pretend anymore.


Hopefully, this will help anyone who has a friend or loved one experiencing loss in their life.

Again

"Tell Pam she's got a good screamer there."
I hear this voice in my head, my Mother's voice and I tell Pam, laughing because I don't know if it's me or some ghost of my Mom talking to me.  Or maybe it has finally happened.
I've lost all sense of sanity.
We were trying to get my niece to sleep, she has this habit of waking up at 11:30PM and not going back to sleep until oh you know 3:45AM!!!

So maybe I hear her voice due to my lack of sleep...who knows.  It's no the first time it has happened, nor will it be the last...I hope.

As I write this I am watching Beatrix crawl around on the living room rug, playing with her new teapot toy.  In moments when I speak to Bebe or buy her things, I think about what Kate would've done.  The dresses and cute toys she would have gotten for this little lady.  I try to see if there is anything I recognize of Kate in Beatrix and there are flashes of her stubborn nature, but mostly I see a baby Erik.

I am trying to go easy on myself these days.  To not be saddened by the past events of this year, some who read this know the extra sadness...some don't.

Palm Sunday
Pam, Beatrix and I found ourselves in church Sunday night.  I could not remember Easter from 2013, I believe that I was at Morristown Hospital with my Mom, but I cannot recall huge chunks of time.

We sat in the beautiful church, listening to the singing(Bebe sings along now).  There is something peaceful in religious services, a calm, a certain sense of what will come next.  And this is strange for me because for someone who was once so connected to a God, a Christ I no longer feel that connection in the same way.

This is the week of celebration of death. We celebrate a death on Friday. We are supposed to embrace the suffering of the Christ, hope in His risen self.

I've read that they believe Jesus began his ministry at age thirty and died at thirty-three.  I am thirty-three, this past year has been one of my own death, I am only beginning to understand this now.
How or what it means to be resurrected.
I watch as Bebe has been pulling herself up to my coffee table, she can almost stand, but is not steady on her feet yet.
She takes a tumble, maybe bumps her head but within minutes she is up again.  Anastasis is the Greek word meaning resurrection Ana means again, or anew and Stasis means to stand.  To stand again.

I am learning to stand again.  My niece and I are learning the same things.

In 2013, I witnessed a death and a birth.  Perhaps I could say two births, because I too am climbing out of my own egg shell, learning Anastasis--to stand again.

My own life, or I should say, my hopes of what my life would be, have been put to death within.  I have been trying to learn how to accept this new life.  I am a baby, or a wee chick emerging from that egg.
At thirty-three, I do understand a bit of the suffering of Christ or how the mystery of holy things pervades my thoughts.

Once A Long Time Ago

One year ago today, I was running around trying to get everything together for a drive out to West Lafayette, Indiana.
How can I explain what has happened in a year?  I thought that maybe I would write about the trip to Indiana, but I am choosing not to dwell on that sadness.

This past weekend, I drove my sister and my nephew Crosby up to Albany to visit my Dad, Erik, Pam and my niece Beatrix.  Both babies are almost seven months old now, I watched them meet each other, now aware of life.  They'd met before but were too little to know it.
My Dad held them, realizing he had two grand-children, and we laughed and watched them sitting next to each other.  Their chubby baby knuckles, big heads and almost toothless grins...I laughed at the simplicity of being a baby.

I tried not to think.  Tried not to think about the person who was not there, could not be there.

I've been told that every great work of literature is about loss or love or both.   I know now that's because everything in life is about loss and or love.  They work in tandem at times, one following the other.  If you put your heart out there, it will eventually experience loss.

The love I feel for my niece and nephew is so great, I never knew I could love two people who are so new, so unknown to me.  Two little souls, who entered my world just as another left.
There is something so tragic in this, I don't quite know how to write or express it at all.  I see people posting things about their Mom's on Facebook, or their grandchildren and it's wonderful.  That love is wonderful, but at times it just reminds me of my own loss...

I think about Crosby and Beatrix, how they will never know this person who brought me  and their parents into this world.  How she will never tell them funny stories about their Mom and Dad as small children.  And I wonder, will they miss someone they've never met?

Maybe I love them more because she is gone. And I wish that I could just wrap them up and keep them in my pocket forever.

I don't want this to be sad, that's not where I am at right now.  There are just little fragments of sadness illuminating my days, because I'm starting to feel better.  Starting to accept things.

Friends, most of you who are my age, you've yet to experience so great a loss.  Some of you have, but someday you will.  Remember that there is no "right" way to grieve, we each have our own way to learn to live without someone.

Maybe that's not right, I am not learning to live without her, maybe I'm just still learning to live.


It's almost Spring again, I'm longing for the warmth and the flowers.  Maybe a soft rainfall, that first smell of Spring...because it's all about rebirth, a respite from this cold.

Hope.  Hope that each day the sun will come up again, that sorrow lessens over time, that there is love to be had in this world again.

Learn By Learning

            My early years, I was a bit of a Daddy's girl.  When I cut my lip and needed stitches, I remember crying out for my Dad while they were stitchin me up.

But ever since I moved back home in 2009, I spent the majority of my time with my Mom.  Our relationship over the past few years had changed a bit, we'd had ups and downs--usually ups.  In the past two years, I would say that our relationship had in many ways become more symbiotic than any other time since I was very young.  The strange thing, is that I never realized it until recently.

 Her first bout with cancer in 2002, I was the one who drove her to the hospital the day of her surgery.  I stayed with her while they ran various test, put metal markers into her breast, when she passed out.  I waited alone to hear from the surgeon.   No part of me wanted  to be there.  In my heart I wanted to run away, and not know, not think that my Mom had cancer.  She went through chemo and radiation, lost all her hair, but I knew by then it was not her time...yet.

It has almost been three years now since we found out the cancer had come back.  Metastisized from her breasts into her lungs and her spine.  When she had her lung re-section surgery, she asked me to stay with her overnight in the hospital.  She was very stubborn and seldom asked others for help, but she felt comfortable with me, always.

 Each day I would change the drainage bag from her lung.  I tried to be as gentle as possible.  She was miserable.   There were only three cancer nodules then.  I came home one night to find her barely moving after a treatment of zometa.  She was extremely feverish and vomiting. 

She was afraid of going through chemo again.  So she sought alternative cancer treatments.  I cannot say if it was right or wrong, each person has to make their own health decisions.  It was just my Mom and I living in our house for a long time.  While she was my mother, she also was my closest friend.  She knew what I was feeling, before I even knew.  We took care of each other in different ways.  I helped her with her cancer diet, cleaned the house, walked the dogs and kept her company.  She made it possible for me to finish my college education.

We fought sometimes.  

We laughed sometimes.  

We spent time talking about my future as a writer. 

She would say, "You have a gift." or "you need to do what makes you happy."

The year before the cancer came back, just my Mom and I spent almost a week up on Martha's Vineyard.  On the first night, I ate crab by accident and started to have an intense allergic reaction.  My Mom was always involved in my health immediately drove to Cronigs and we bought some Benadryl.  Let's just say that I passed out by 7PM that night.  We had such a wonderful time, hiking, eating Clam Chowder, walking the dog on the beach at Chappaquiddick.

 I've been missing her a lot this past week.  I've been sick.  My first real sickness since losing her, and it's crazy but maybe because she was so involved with my asthma and my stupid lungs for so many years, I just miss her.  I think of her lungs.  The cancer in her lungs killed her.

We liked  a lot of the same TV shows, specifically Downton Abbey and Mad Men.   So for the past few years on Sunday nights, we'd pop some popcorn and I'd make a big cup of tea and we'd watch our shows.  A few weeks ago, the new season of Downton Abbey started.  I watched about five minutes and turned it off.  I was simply disinterested.  I didn't know why.  Until I had a conversation with my Dad.

"Have you been watching Downton Abbey?" He asked.

"No." I said." I guess that I just haven't been interested, maybe because Mom and I used to watch it together."  I didn't realize until I spoke it.  Makes sense right?

 Just like it makes sense that every month around the 27th, I get a bit sad.  I don't always know why, until I stop and think, "Oh yeah." 

When I was in the throws of caring for my Mom, I never stopped to think about how lonely I would be when she was gone.  I'd gotten so used to our relationship.  The way she would talk to all the people in the hospital about me, saying,

"Ask my daughter, she will know."  Or I'd hear her call my name from down the hallway just making sure that I hadn't left yet.  

All I can say is, this grief thing is a bitch.

One second I will feel perfectly fine, and then my heart feels as though it is being pulled down into my stomach.  They don't teach you about grief in school.  There are counselors who learn, but the average person gains knowledge through experience.  We are seasoned by these losses. 

When my cat Teddy was hit by a car, I was almost ten.   It was my first "real" loss.  I saw his lifeless cat body wrapped in a black garbage bag and I did what anyone who is really sad does.  I threw myself on the ground and howled.  My Mom tried to console me, but I simply could not imagine my life without Teddy.  His name was one of my very first words, he was there when I was born.  He was always there no matter what...I had loved him for my whole life.  Eventually, my sadness over losing him grew less painful.  I got new cats, who I loved, none ever as great as him until my Sunflower.

But when my mother died, even if I wanted to throw myself on the ground and howl, the construct of behavior, or fear or something prevented me.  Rational behavior versus grief can create some sort of strange dichotomy of emotion.   Maybe all the losses over the years hardened me.  Sometimes though, I wish I could be more like my ten year old self and give into the sorrow. 

Fear holds me back.  

Fear that if I threw myself to the ground, I may never get back up.