April 2014, 3 months before Temme died
I’ve been home for a few days from taking Eliza, our youngest, to college in Boston. It’s surreal to come home to no mother and no daughter, to an empty nest, the first time in 25 years that Karyn and I have not had children in our house. My mother’s death and dying still feels white hot and impossible to get close to it. I want to write about it all, to record it, but words feel insufficient, the experience so vast. It’s not often that I’m at a loss for words. The changes are so big and far-reaching, I can’t touch them. I wonder when I’ll be able to, if I’ll be able to. Right now, I feel untethered and lost and the things that feel best are eating healthy food, walking, being in nature, sitting with a friend.
Last night I said to Karyn that it wasn’t yet real to me that my mother is dead. It hasn’t sunk in that she will not reappear, that I will not be making my daily visits, fielding the emergency phone calls, listening to her tell me over and over again, “You’re the best daughter in the whole world and you’ve never given me a moment’s trouble.” I won’t be worrying about her falling or having to take her to the ER or getting yet another crisis call from Ronald at Maple House beginning with the words, “It’s your mom…”
The other day, I stood in front of our refrigerator with the door propped open. There were two drawers full of wet, moldy vegetables, aged into bagged slime while we moved Eliza to Boston, bought her nine used cold weather coats-down, fake leather, tweed, fleece, and pea. We shopped at Target, Staples, and Bed, Bath and Beyond, loading carts with extra long twin size sheets, a bulletin board, a round white sticky dot that attaches to the wall for dry-erase messages, a mesh pop up hamper, clothespins, hangers, highlighters, a coffee filter, a coffee cone (it took nine stores in Boston to find one-no one knew what we were asking for), a Tempurpedic mattress pad, and a hundred other needed items: a muted world map mounted of poster board, a ream of pure white paper, a new computer, the small ink-jet printer I sent Eli to college with that he never used. We left Eliza with ground Philz coffee, a box of throat coat tea, warm socks, and the first aid kit Karyn lovingly made for her, full of bandaids, Advil and organic remedies from Santa Cruz. We carried boxes, suitcases and bags into her dorm room, lofted her bed, spread her comforter, rolled her new sweaters, hung her clothes, organized her shoes, while she set up her bulletin board and unpacked her office supplies.
Then we drove her to the gym where she was greeted by upperclassmen dancing in silly costumes to music we didn’t recognize. Their presence, blocking the entrance to the door, was clear evidence were not meant to follow our daughter into the gym. Instead we stood, feeling old, watching her carry her gear for her pre-orientation backpacking trip through the gauntlet of greeters and didn’t look back. We turned and staggered back to the empty rented van. Our daughter didn’t live with us anymore.
On the night of our return, as I stared into the fridge, I was confronted at Eliza’s staples: white tortillas, cheddar cheese, ham, frozen boxed macaroni and cheese, all foods I do not want to eat. For 25 years our diet has been ruled by the whims and caprices of children. Now as I stared into the mostly empty, dirty fridge), I had no idea what to eat. And so I went to bed hungry.
Every time I walk into our house, I am confronted with the altar I created for my mother and two empty bedrooms. Every time I drive home, I pass Maple House, where my mother spent the last six weeks of her life. It is the place where she struggled to breathe and stopped eating and drinking. It was the place where I moistened her lips with a tiny green sponge on the end of a stick and washed her hair in bed the day before she died. It is the place where bedsores bloomed overnight, where I held her hand as she labored to die. Where we sat with her body through the night as her skin turned cool alabaster. It is the place where my brother and I watched her body lifted onto a gurney and covered with a blue velvet cloth. I touched her belly one last time and said, “I grew in there. She made me.” Then they wheeled her out the back door so the other residents wouldn’t have to see her body. Wouldn’t have to look their future in the face.
Every single time I drive by Maple House, something rips inside me and and I have to turn away.
I’ve always thought of myself as someone who likes to face my life. I like to delve beneath the surface. I like to feel it, analyze it, explore it, know it. And yet I cannot do that now. When I see my mother’s face on the desktop of my computer or accidentally start the slide show I made of our trip to Florida to see her sister, just six months ago, I quickly click away. I can’t look at the video my cousin made of her funeral. I can’t listen to the interview we did together on StoryCorps just a few years ago. Whenever I go into my office to get a file folder or retrieve a book, I have to walk past heaps of her clothing, her blue recliner, her artwork, an ocean of her belongings. I walk past her things and pretend not to see them. I am a ghost, picking up the empty file folder or the book. I leave as fast as I can.
Every morning I think to myself, ‘Oh, I should be writing about my mother’s death. I should write about how she tried to speak to me the day before she died, but it only came out as gibberish. I should write about the smell of decay on her breath as she lay dying. I should write about how I held her hand and stared into her eyes and traveled with her to the place between worlds. I should write about how I saw in that moment that she and I have been together in the timeless realms, stretching far before my birth and well beyond the death of her body. I should write about watching her bones glow red hot in the crematorium, the pooling of blood on her back when the hospice worker and I washed her the morning she died.
But I just can’t do it. I feel I should; I am afraid I will forget; but I can’t bear to remember. I want to record what happened, but the loss is too big for words. It is white hot and I can’t get near it. I want to open myself to take in the vastness of the changes in my life. The immensity of the grief. The loss of my mother. The launching of my daughter. No one but me to care for the first time in 25 years. But I can’t. I can only feel it in dribs and drabs. Waking up sobbing. Or feeling as if I’ve been whacked upside the head by a heavy weight in the middle of the day. The exhaustion I carry with me every moment. My irritability. The way nothing matters anymore.
I have grieved before, but not like this. I have faced change and loss and transformation before, but not like this. My life and my heart, my very self, is unrecognizable to me. I don’t know what that will mean for my life or my teaching, my writing or my relationships. All I know is that I am untethered. And I recognize that this is only the beginning of this journey.
Oh Laura, my dear. I am so sad for you. Such huge losses/changes, and you are floating like a little raft in the middle of these stormy seas. Daniella, years ago when her mom died, found great support and sustenance in attending a grief support group offered through Hospice. I would imagine they still offer them, and it might be somewhere to turn where you will find others who are struggling as you are. In the meantime, know that you are greatly loved by so many of us. My heart reaches out to you!
Thanks, Kim. I’m sure I will attend a Hospice group when the next one rolls around. I did that when my dad died 14 years ago and I got a lot from it. Thanks for your love and support. I feel you!
Oh, Laura,
I’m sorry to read of your mother’s death and your deep despair. Many hugs and kisses to you, dear.
And now Eliza is off to her new life.
Many closings and openings all at once. Be patient with yourself in this time of change.
Blessings,
Lilith
Thanks, Lilith. It is a strange and transformative time. Sometimes it feels ordinary; other times altered. I’m noticing my level of fatigue is higher, my stamina diminished. I think that goes with the territory.
Laura, I am so sorry about your mother and while i don’t know exactly how you feel, since no one can really know another’s full experience, reading your words gave voice to my own experience– with my parents, my own daughter, the feelings that are so overwhelming and foreign. My daughter is getting ready to give birth soon, and I feel incredible joy, mixed with the memories of my mother’s quick death so long ago, my father’s long decline and death, all the grief about losses– my divorce, my daughter moving away–all this mixed with incredible (and unknown) hopes for the future– I do know that somehow I’ve moved through it or with it, on to the next life change. And yet, it’s still challenging and the feelings can resurface at any time and my heart is with you.
Love to you,
Paula
Thanks Paula. As we get older is huge life changes accumulate, don’t they? I guess it’s all about flexibility and the ability to weather change, ride the waves of grief, while continuing to open to joy.
Dear Laura,
I just read your post about losing your mom, and I am sending warm hugs from VT, hoping they reach you just when you need them most. Thank you for sharing so much of yourself with us, and guiding many, including myself, to the transformations they seek. Please take wonderful care of yourself in this time of grief, and know that there are many people here on the East Coast ready to help if your daughter needs anything!
love,
Laura
Thanks for your kind words Laura. On a happier note, I’m flying to Boston next weekend to check in on both my kids. That is something that makes me happy!
I’ve saved this in my reading list for rereading. It brought up so many memories for me of the chasm into which I plunged seven years ago this summer when my own mother died. It took me three years before I could write a small piece about the night and day it took her to finally pass over and then I put it in a drawer for another four years before finally sharing it in a workshop. For those of us who have always found solace, redemption, definition in words, in reading and writing, it is shattering that there are some passages in our lives that leave us so gobsmacked, hit along side the head, as you said, that we are left in a stunned silence. Well, you have given it a start in this post but you should allow yourself time to heal and deal without the pressure to put it all into words just yet. The wound is still fresh. It will scab over in time although expect to pick at it and reopen the wound many times before the scar sets. Meanwhile, try to take care of yourself as best you can.
Thanks, Diana for sharing this. It helped me feel seen and heard.
There is a blank space that will close and reopen as time goes on. When you mentioned Ronald at MapleHouse it brought back memories of my mother-in-law who was housed there. Ronald is a wonderful caregiver/overseer. Rose’s last few years were the MapleHouse. My husband Michael and his friend Danny would play and sing music for the residents and we’d go sing Christmas carols with them in Dec. It was a lot of fun to see them enjoying it so much and singing along if they could. I love the photo of you and Temme and think she just looks so young and spry! I’m sorry for your loss but you have good memories to hang onto and cherish. xo
Yes, Maple House is a special place. It wasn’t the right fit for my mom because at the time she moved in, she needed more specialized care than they could offer, but the place was always filled with genuine compassion and love.
I have stood where you stand now. Unable to fathom the vast todays and tomorrows I will spend on this earth without my Mom. Bereft by the bottomless loss that makes my chest ache and eyes water and my shoulders heave without warning. She passed away 15 years ago this summer, and I can assure you, if I may, that things do get “better” — but I still carry around a small hollow space in my heart even now that cannot be filled because she is gone.
Thanks, Mary. I feel that way about my dad. He died 14 years ago. And this year the anniversary of his death passed me right by. I had forgotten. That was unbelievable to me!
And it DOES change or CAN change all of your relationships. In profound and often bittersweet ways.
I’m hoping it does. I’m open to that. Don’t want to get in the way.
Laura;
The past five years have devastated me – from losing our houses & business, moving to TX where the environment was so permeated by my brother’s cruelty that I sent my children back to CA (not a good place either, but not quite as bad), trying to take care of my father and his business despite my brother’s bullying, moving back to CA at the mercy of a horrible mover only to find my husband living with another woman and having divorce papers thrown at me the morning after I arrived, the divorce (still ongoing over 3 years later), breaking my leg/hip in four places, etc., etc. and no closure on anything yet.
I understand being “untethered.”
Getting through the day is often enough for me and through this process I am learning to be patient with myself. Like you, I’ve always just jumped in and fixed things; took care of people, but recognize I’m not even to the ‘rebuild my life’ stage yet. I work a bit (taking care of elderly), have managed to maintain a great relationship with my kids and am working on forgiving my husband – but that’s it. Except for a few poems, I don’t write. I can’t paint or play piano. I’ve been through some very dry spells in terms of creativity before in my life (like when my mom died) and am comforted by the fact that I have rebounded and for the better.
I still avoid many aisles in the grocery store so I don’t cry.
No time limits, here, my friend. You’ve been through a lot. My prayers are with you and thank you for sharing.
Thanks Sunny. And as I read (and remember) what you’ve been through, I am also grateful for the grounding and community I do have.
I was stunned in reading this how quickly it took me back to mother loss, to empty house after my daughter left, to trying to find my bearings and finding I had none. And these things happened a year apart for me, not together. I was stunned in reading this to feel that loss again straight through all the way into my heart, stunned that you could capture so well that which has you reeling. This writing, as incomplete as it seems to you in describing the loss of your mom, goes straight into the heart of it all. And in doing that, it made me want to put my arms around you even as I felt lost again in my own sorrow.
And then there was the going of your daughter, at the same time. Oh, Lord.
Please take care of yourself, be kind to yourself as if you had walking right beside you a small girl, lost and in shock after a missile striking her home had also taken away some of those she loved. That little girl, of course is you, but you can’t see that so clearly now, so just believe it. And ask yourself, what would you give her, what will keep her body and heart alive while she reels with pain and loss beyond describing. Then do those things for yourself.
And, when you can, let others take care of and love you. And remind yourself, all of the time, that you cannot see clearly now, but that you know this: your very self has been shattered, that you must wait to find the way out. And accept what you cannot do.
Early this week, someone posted on Facebook a plea from a New Jersey animal shelter to take a dog that had to be relinquised by his family after three years with that family. It described how the dog, upon seeing the family leave him, began to moan and cry and did not stop. The shelter said the dog was loving and friendly and easy in personality, but that it was in danger of dying of a broken heart if they did not get him to a home that could love him. The tears rolled down my cheeks and I have been haunted by that dog since, although he is far away and most likely has a home now. After a day or two, during which I contemplated flying to NJ to get him, I realized that the story had awakened in me the mourning, the inconsolability and enormity of the loss of my mother and the loss of all that life had been for me. In reading about the depths of the dog’s pain, I was haunted by my own. This morning, while I read your blog, I heard the dog howling again in my mind. And I wanted to find you the home, the love, to relieve your suffering. Of course, I know that you have that love in your life. And yet, despite my wish, it cannot relieve the suffering much at all now. And I am so sorry.
All I can think of right now is a poem of Ellen Bass’ that I have on my computer desktop, a poem that got me through some of the worst moments of loss, dislocation and aloneness in my life. Perhaps it will ring true to you. If not, that is fine, just know that my heart is with you. Here it is:
You do not know the breaking through
as it happens. You are in the mine
axing, axing and the metal dust
makes it hard to breathe–there are minutes you
give breathing up, your work is elsewhere.
Lifting great arms, slamming stone
your body must let go
or shatter. You blink sweat.
You cannot feel your hands, so full with blood.
They will pulsate, later
they will tremble. But now
they are ax, you are ax, and you
do not know what you are doing.
After, after you will look.
You will acknowledge. You will
see through the opening you have cleared.
–Ellen Bass
Thanks for this, Sheila. I was moved by your story of the dog. And the poem–wonderful. As is all of Ellen’s poetry.
What strikes me from the beautiful, powerful writing you did here is how deeply and truly you lived this time with your mother and how generously you shared it with all of us.
I can’t imagine a greater testimony to love than to deeply, openly, generously being present to every moment.
The circle of community of all of us who have been touched by your work Laura, are around you now, holding you during this time of sorrow and transition.
Thanks, Mo. Your words mean a lot.
As I approach end of life issues, the more intimate relationships here and in the beyond. Temme and I speak in prayer. We remember together. Silence is powerful. Meditation enables us to move beyond the physical. Words are not enough. We are the miracles. We are the music. We are partners in creation.
I’m with you in spirit…yes. I wish I could feel my mother more, but so far, no messages from beyond. She’s in me, though.
That photo is wonderful and the similarity in noses and smiles as well. Thanks for letting us in to this difficult time of transitions. The upperclassmen blocking the families, the letting goes and the hangings on. The details of the preparations for sending off. And the echoes of sendings off. The presences still felt.
And all the sensory details, the paragraph so vivid–that ends with the velvet and the wheeling away and the direction so others do not see. This was all so vivid.
Words that honor…the people leaving, the people we drive to their new destinations, or honor right where we are and have been…are so full of value. Thank you.
Lee
You’re welcome, Lee. Thanks for taking the time to write in.
Querida Laura, My heart aches for what you are experiencing. Your line “I’m afraid I’ll forget, but I can’t bear to remember” says it all. You will never forget and there will be a time when you can remember without the pain. You have always reminded us in class that a writer needs the distance from emotional laden experiences to be able to write clearly and reflect on them. Give yourself the time and your heart and soul will be ready to give these experiences to the world. For now do just what you are doing, sharing what you can. I could not write about my mother’s death for at least 25 years and when I did, I sobbed and cried as I wrote and when I shared with the group I could hardly be understood. This was at one of your retreats at the Land of the Medicine Buddha. At the end of my reading I apologized for not being able to express my musings, which was the purpose of our writing, and was told that that I would be able to do so in time.
Take good care of yourself and know that you are loved by many. See you soon.
Con cariños,
Carolina
Thanks Carolina. I appreciate the reminder. Sometimes the teacher needs to hear her own words spoken back to her.
Dear Laura,
I am so sorry for the loss of your sweet mama. I feel like i knew her a bit from all your writings…. these times of beginnings and endings – often so unsettling. Know that you are wrapped with lots of warmth and compassion as you move with this….
KW
Thanks Karen for your kind words.
I am sorry Laura. I remember a post you wrote in February while we were both at the San Miguel Writers’ Conference. You spoke of your mother’s own joyful times in San Miguel, and how her disease had made it impossible for her to ever travel to Mexico again.
That was only six months ago.
Now your daughter is at college, starting a new chapter of her life, and your mom’s life has ended. Your two most intense relationships have changed course – it is no wonder you feel like you’ve been “whacked upside the head by a heavy weight. ”
Because that is exactly what has happened to you.
It is impossible to recover overnight from a double-whammy like this. No one is that strong. My mother has been gone for 12 years and I still ache – not all day, every day – but the pain of losing her has not gone away
And I feel like an orphan.
Be kind to yourself. If you feel you cannot fulfill some of your commitments – bow out – people will understand. But as you move along through the grieving process, your work will save you. It am sure it will.
I know this is true, because mine saved me.
Joanna, I’m trying to find that balance right now–between how much work to do and what to let go of. The sweet spot of having some focus and some grounding in the world, and leaving myself free to roam and have open space….
Dear Laura,
Thank you for so vividly sharing with us the enormity of your grief. Everything here is so poignant and powerful, and so validating for those who have intense feelings around the loss of a mother. This is even more touching given your sad time of estrangement. It was your mutual agreement to agree to disagree, and because of that, the two of you were able to complete the cycle of the mother-daughter relationship in the healthiest of ways! That must bring you intense satisfaction as you review the many details of times shared with your sweet mother.
So well done and so instructive for us all,
Adrienne
Two years worth of perspective… many trips… I thought of you, Laura, this morning, and wondered, with two years distance, have you begun to see the golden frame that highlights the memory of your Mom in your mind’s eye? Do the corners of your mouth turn upward into a warm smile when a memory of her suddenly explodes in your mind? The pangs are always there – the wanting to share, the wishing to hear her voice… but the agony ebbs, replaced by an unmistakable feeling of closeness, of her being just out of range of your vision, but close enough to feel her cosmic embrace.
Mary, my perspective on her is changing, but because I’ve been writing about her pretty steadily all aspects of her are still in pretty clear focus…no soft focused memory yet…but I mostly have good feelings about her death…she really passed something powerful on to me in her passing.
Hi Laura,
I found your writing after declaring to Google: “I can’t believe my mom has died”. It helped to read some of your passing thoughts, such as, the pooling of the blood on her back and staring into her eyes, knowing that you’ve been connected longer than life. I’m uplifted and haunted by my own mental snaps, some horrifying, like when I held my mom’s face close and tight because of the excruciating pain caused by her major stroke that made an ordinary sneeze inhumane, and some just images that I remember for no reason, like the way her left eyebrow lifted when she heard me enter the ICU and the way each exhale sounded like a small moan. The entire experience, including the paradigm created in my first 46 years with her, has taken up residence in my torso and, though there are many hours when thinking about her doesn’t bring me to my knees, I can’t escape the weight of it all, because it has become part of me. It’s like a huge hole and a new organ all at once, and I really don’t know what to do with either. My mom was the light of my life, my magical garden fairy (I used to call her), my sweet, gentle hero. I do feel a more intimate relationship with her now, as if we share a secret about what happens after. She knows the part about what happens after Earth; I know the part about what happens to Earth without her here. Yin and yang. Thank you for sharing your experience. It doesn’t help change mine (as it shouldn’t), but it does help to light a corner of the newly discovered dark wing of the mansion that is life.
Darci,
My heart goes out to you in your grief. I’m glad my words at least let you know that you aren’t alone. I just passed the sixth anniversary of my mother’s death. She lives inside me–the grief is not sharp as it was. More bittersweet and loving. Best to you on your grieving journey.
Laura