It’s been nearly 3 weeks. We all miss you so much. It’s been so hard to just continue our lives as if nothing has changed, when everything has changed. You’re gone forever. I can’t see you, I can’t call you, I can’t hear your voice or feel your hug. It’s also been both beautiful and heartbreaking to witness your impact on the world and all those you’ve touched. So many hurting from losing you. While there are moments throughout the day that can feel “normal”, whatever that means, it always comes rushing back that you’re gone. Longing to see/hear you or the painful memories of seeing you in those last days. While part of me wishes, of course, not to have those memories, another part of me clings to any memory of you. I also feel oddly grateful to have been one of the ones to have born witness to what you went through in the end — your suffering, your bravery and your continued compassion for others. While I’ll always wonder if there’s more I could have done for you, I didn’t turn away and I tried to be there as much as possible for you. I’m am grateful for those moments together with you and Dad, supporting you, no matter how hard they were.
Every week seems like a new physical/mental ailment as I grieve. I know there are all sorts of ideas about grief and how one should deal with the loss of someone you love, but this level of emotional pain is new to me. At first, I was, of course, extremely emotional at your passing, which gradually moved into a space of shock/detachment, anxiety, then to depression and maybe a sense of denial. It has been hard to accept, not in a logical sense, but in an emotional or existential sense, that you’re truly gone — like my brain simply doesn’t know what to do with that knowledge. As my mother, you are someone that has always been there. It’s hard to process the idea that you simply don’t exist in my world anymore. I logically understand, but part of my brain has been denying the possibility. But, the reality has been starting to sink in more this past week, which seems to come with a new level of grieving.
I’ve also found myself looking for signs that you still exist, somewhere. From the strong smell of lavender that randomly hit me the day after your passing, to the “experience” I had the day after that or experiences that Dad shares with me. I have to accept the possibility that it’s just our brains dealing with your loss and looking for you. While everyone has different beliefs about what happens when we die, right now in this moment, in this life, it really doesn’t matter because I still have to exist in this world without you. That is what I know for sure and what I have to deal with. I’m not sure the best way for me to deal with that, but I know it’s not just pretending that everything is back to “normal”.
Grief is a process, an unending long and winding road. The landscape changes as we travel the distance, some parts of the path barren and some more beautiful — but it’s the same road. And grief itself is the destination: at every moment of our grief, we are arriving. — Joanne Cacciatore
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