When she's gone

When it’s all over and everyone has left, gone to their homes, or the airport, or wherever it is they might go to embrace, accept, tolerate, or ignore their grief, you are left to face your own.

That’s the moment when it’s really fucking hard to pretend she’s not gone.

I mean, of course you know she’s gone. You were there when they brought her body to the funeral parlor. You saw her on that table in that room, lifeless and cold. You touched her hand, the skin wrinkled and sagging and thought of all the times you made jokes about your friend’s cold hands and the touch of death. This was the actual touch of death from a woman who was so fucking alive once.

You were there at the viewing, standing obediently next to her coffin, the dutiful daughter accepting people’s condolences and kind words.

“She was a great woman, your mom. I’m sorry she’s gone.”

“How are you doing? Can I give you a hug?”

They all want to hug you. That’s just what they do, even to the people who don’t want it, don’t want anyone to fucking touch them right now. And you let them because to not would be to cause a scene, and who causes a scene at their mother’s funeral?

“Thank you, she was pretty great.”

“Thank you, I am sorry she’s gone too.”

“Thanks for coming. She would be glad you’re here.”

Normally you embrace the niceties, the common courtesies we show each other every day. You pride yourself on showing gratitude whenever appropriate. But this gratitude, this much gratitude, at this fucking moment? Add that to the hugging and it’s all so much and you just… want it to be over.

Except that’s not true. The truth is you never want it to be over. You’d have stood in that fucking line until you starved to death if it meant you didn’t have to be there the next day.

Because you were also there when they closed the coffin, in that tiny room just off the chapel. Everyone had said what they had to say about her. Shared her life, their love for her, their sadness that she’s gone, and the weird conviction those who believe in the afterlife have that she is close by watching over us. They had sung her favorite songs, read her favorite poems, and shared her favorite scriptures. They had done all they could to prolong the inevitable until they could delay no more.

Through it all you had maintained your composure. You were calm, cool, and only made a few inappropriate jokes that were understandable in these circumstances. You had helped with the funeral arrangements, planned the program, and designed the handout. You filled out the life insurance paperwork; the payout wasn’t a lot, $20,000, but it was enough to cover the funeral and some of the medical bills. You did it all without missing a beat. You were a fucking rock.

A rock who crumbled under the weight of postponed heartache the moment they closed the coffin, the moment she disappeared forever. You fell to your knees sobbing. It had been years since you cried like that and many more before you would again.

The heartbreak of losing your mother, that beautiful, flawed hero and villain of your life, it’s different. It hurts in ways that you can’t imagine and never want to feel again. It’s like drowning, but then all heartache is. Except this is drowning in a pool of your own conflicted feelings and reminding yourself the only feeling that matters right now is knowing no one in the world will ever love you like she does, and you will never love anyone like her again. And you never told her that because you didn’t know it until it was too late. It took losing her to know how much she meant.

But you pulled it together goddamn quick because you had shit to do. You still had to bury her, and there was the repast to host, and more fucking hands to hold, tissues to offer, hugs to cringingly tolerate. Can’t be bogged down by weighty emotions. Got. Shit. To. Do.

You leaned on that all day, really all week after she died. You kept moving, never stopping, never thinking; laser-like focus on getting shit done.

Until everything is done, and it eventually is. Eventually you are alone, the mourners faded away, family no longer by your side. You’re alone, as you always have been during the hard shit, and you can no longer hide from it.

You sit on the edge of your bed with one of the mementos of her you kept, a small black journal, bound in leather with a ribbon bookmark attached. It was marking the page after her last entry so she could return to it quickly when she was ready to write again. The last entry was about you. All her entries were about her children, but this one was about you. She detailed your last conversation with her and how she was worried about you, how after all these years she wished you could find a man and settle down, stop being such a wild child.

Even in death she was just a little bit judgmental and you couldn’t really be mad at her because A, you’re not a dick. I mean, she just died. Seems kind of shitty to punish her for it now. And B, because you know it wasn’t meant as judgement. She really did want what’s best for you even if her best was not your best.

You lay back on the bed, fully clothed the small journal pressed against your heart with both hands. You swim in that familiar feeling of, “Jesus, mom, give me a fucking break. I’m 26, there’s still time to figure this shit out.”

And that’s when you know, that feeling, that moment, that bemusement, that is the last time she will ever make you feel that way. That’s when it really comes flooding in. Not like when they closed her coffin. That was loud and crashing waves, unintentionally dramatic. This is different. This is quiet, soft, and gentle. Lapping waves of sadness for all the feelings she’ll never make you feel again; all the moments lost to you for the rest of your life; all the stupid shit she’ll never judge you for again; all the bad choices she’ll heroically defend you for; even just the way you laughed every time she pronounced poem as "poim."

The leather binding on the book had been cool to the touch when you picked it up, but now it was warm in your hand. You continue to hold it to your chest as you let the emotions fill you, let the tears stream down your cheeks, allow yourself to feel everything you have been hiding from since you got the call that she was gone.

The room grew dark as the sun set and you lay there in the inky blackness thinking about tomorrow, wondering if the sun would rise again, if it would look the same; knowing just because you changed doesn’t mean the sun, or the world, would change with you. It would all remain as it ever was and nobody would know that anything was different, nobody that didn’t know her anyway.

And you think, "That’s a fucking shame."