20 Days of Grief, Kindness, Anger and Making Lemonade

Everything has seemed off since my mom died. The lines blur, the picture is fuzzy, and the sound is muffled. Off. Simply off. Not that I expected things to be the same or anything…I just never expected it to be like this. It is hard to concentrate…the mind wanders relentlessly. It is hard to be still…always feel the need to be moving or doing something. It is hard to be in the dark, need to be in the light. Hard to connect with everyone and anyone. I feel like a stranger in a semi-familiar world. The people are the same except my mom isn’t among us. The places are the same, except her things aren’t surrounding us. The conversations are the same but without her voice. Everything is off. It doesn’t seem real. Too surreal. There are no words to fully explain…or to understand.

Death is truly bizarre. One day someone is here, the next they are gone. Just like that…here then gone. Here, gone. In a blink of an eye. Here. Gone. There is an empty chair at the table with no one to sit in it. There are clothes without anyone to wear them. There is a toothbrush with nobody to use it. There are all these things left behind without the person who used them. Here. Gone. Everything seems off. It is like a person’s life is being erased slowly as their things are sorted and picked through. I thought I had comprehended it in an intellectual sense. All my grandparents have passed away, as well as a few aunts, uncles and cousins. But, it never truly clicked until my mom passed away. Even though death is a natural part of life, it is simply and truly bizarre. When you are born there’s been months leading up to it…signs of development and progress. With death there is nothing. Simply nothing. Nothing but the fact that the person is now gone. It doesn’t matter if a person dies because of illness, accident or natural causes because there is no true process with death. There are no stages as there is with birth. You don’t have terms to death. It just is. It can take months or a single second. One minute someone is here, the very next minute they could be gone. And there is nothing anyone can say or do about it…that is just how it works. Bizarre.

My mom passed away 20 days ago today. It is so hard to not be able to talk to her. I have never in my life gone even close to not talking to her for this long. Even when I was in Europe the longest I went without talking to her was three days. I called home often to talk. Now I look at the phone and I think I should call her. Then I remember she is gone. Sometimes when I go to call someone, I accidentally dial her phone number instead of theirs. Autopilot. I hear that it is a common thing to happen. Doesn’t make it any easier though.

The past 14 months, not a single day went by without us talking or being together. Not a single day. I don’t know how to make that clearer. Not a single day. No wonder there is such a void in my life now. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to solve that mystery. I love…love…love the people who say that life goes and you just have to get on with things. Thanks. That never occurred to me. What hadn’t I thought of that? Everything makes so much more sense now. Great, I appreciate it. Thanks for letting me know that life goes on. Brilliant. One small problem though…see….when you feel lost, it is hard to get on with things because nothing seems familiar anymore.

So there it is…20 days. 20 truly difficult days. It is hard to think that 20 days will turn into weeks, then months and finally years. At some point years will have gone by without being able to talk to her. It seems impossible to comprehend. Then again, when she died it seemed impossible to comprehend that I would even get through the day, much less 20 days.

I was watching Survivor last night. I have watched that show since the first one many years ago with the original group. Last night a contestant by the name of Greg said that his father died a year ago and he grieves every single day. I have never liked Greg, but in that moment, in an instant I felt sorry for him. The death of a parent is a horrendous thing. Until it happens to you, you can never understand it. I thought I could comprehend it. Then it happened to me and I realized I had been fooling myself. I had no idea…

I get tired of people, who have never lost someone truly close to them, telling me that I should see a grief counselor. That thought is beyond comprehension. When they lose someone close to them…and they will…just a matter of time, fact of life. I hope that I am able to take the high road and not flippantly suggest to them to go to a counselor and everything will be fine. Tell them to just get back on the horse and give them a pat on the back. Karma. What you put into this world comes back to you. Karma. But, I honestly have no idea what a counselor could even tell me that I have not heard before a thousand and one times. Not that I have anything against counselors. I don’t. To each their own. If they help you, great. If not, find something else that works. No sweat. I guess some people may be uncomfortable with the expression of grief. They are afraid of it somehow. But do you know what I find truly scary in this world? I find people that are able to shut off their emotions, with a flick of a switch in their mind, to be the ones that are truly scary or dangerous. Nothing scares me more than someone who is emotionally dead. In my eyes, they are the ones who are in the most need of a help because they have lost their soul. It is the people who cannot express their grief or sorrow that go on to lead lives that are emotionally repressed and stunted. They are the ones who cannot accept their own emotions or who they are. You can pick them out in a crowd when something bad happens. They are the ones who start running. Running away from their past and themselves. Running. Never stopping for a minute to see what they really have been running from. Running. Faster. Running. Been running so long they don’t even know where they are now. Lost.

Life in a small town. Everyone knows everyone else and their business. A woman at my bank back home, whom I never really spoke to before told me that she was sorry about the loss of my mom. This bank teller seemed to be in her upper 40’s, lower 50’s maybe. She then told me that both her parents have passed on now. Her mother just in November of last fall. Her mother was in her 80’s I believe. She said that the loss of her mom was so much harder than the loss of her father. She said the loss of a mother truly takes the wind out of your sails. She said it is different even if you think you love them the same. She said many other things about me staying true to myself and my goals and not giving up on acting and comedy and things of that nature. An interesting conversation with a stranger. She was kind. It was nice of her to care. She was just one of many who have shown kindness to me and my family. But, it is the kindness of strangers that really makes you take notice because it is the least expected. I believe her words. I believe her grief. I believe her when she said you never get over the loss of a parent. I wonder if her world is still off. I wonder if anyone told her to go to a counselor. I wonder if anyone told her to just get back on the horse. I wonder who let her down in her moment of need. I wonder many things. Here she is much older than I am with her mother taken at a time that we start to expect people to go and she is still having a difficult time with it. I am 30, my mom was 51. She was more than my mom, she was my best-friend as well. Two monstrous losses rolled up into one. I am too young to be facing this, my mom was too young to go. So I do believe that I will be dealing with this for a long time yet. I am ok with that. There are no quick fixes in life. Just one step at a time.

So there it is…life is simply off. Familiar but very foreign at the same time. I have no idea if things will ever be right again. I have no idea if it can even be right again. If not, I guess you just figure out a way to make the most of it. Like my mom said in her final days…”we gotta make lemonade”.