she’s back again.
a piece of my heart feels
whole again.
Am I asking to be
hurt again?
She’s always been
that friend
the understands me,
just “gets me” friend
Asks me to be more
than I am
Asks me to better
than I have been
But she leaves me.
Confuses me.
But she’s back again.
not obligated to succumb happily to whatever comes... not obligated to live lies
my mom says she’s not a hugger. but when i put my arms around her on a gloomy day or after bad news she’s the last to let go. my dad says he doesn’t want gifts on his birthday, but i see the way his face light up when i get him a card with a nice message and a box full of chocolate anyway. he’s just a kid inside, still. it makes him giddy. my brother never says i love you. but when i tell him “i just need to finish the dishes before i vacuum!” he wordlessly goes to vacuum the entire house before i can, and if he sees me struggle with a wrapper or a jar or a bottle he mutters ‘c’mere’ and opens it for me without even sparing me a glance. the thing is, people love you quietly, and you love them quietly, and the air is buzzing with tiny but grand gestures & once you look for them, you find them everywhere. i think that’s really beautiful.
i did write something
Mom,
Today is 5 months since I last saw you. Since I sat in the room with you and my family as you took the last breath you would take on this earth.
It seems oddly fitting that today I should get some wonderful work news. My elation was quickly filled with your absence when I realized that I couldn’t tell the one person I wanted to. My heart immediately ached with loss. With the reminder that I’ll never get to tell you anything new. I’ll never get to hear you say that you are proud of me again. It isn’t going to happen. So I called Jen, I called Dad, I called my best friend. And the void didn’t fill, but I know they are proud of me and I know they thought of you too.
The day you went on hospice, you asked me about my new job. I told you how good it was, how much I loved it, and I saw a calm fall over your face. You knew how much my “transitional job” (as I call it) made me miserable. You knew I was unhappy and I knew you wouldn’t want to leave this place knowing I was unhappy. You wanted to know that your children were at peace.
Well mom, today the job I love so much proved that they care for and respect me too. They promoted me. And I want you to know somehow. I need to write this letter because I need to tell you. You would be happy that how horrible this year has been, how devastating your death has been, how empty I feel most days, it hasn’t stopped me from making something of myself. It hasn’t been easy but I haven’t buckled in depression and sadness and fear. I have been in pain, but I have pushed on. You would want to know that. You would want to see it.
This is all because of you mom. You have taught me to work hard, you have taught me to keep on fighting, everyday. Wake up and fight. Not just how you fought your illness, but how you lived your life. You never gave up. You worked 3-4 jobs when we were kids because that’s what needed to happen.
When bad things happened to me, you let me be sad. But only for a moment and then it was always “what’s next” or “how are we going to fix this?” Do you remember when I was a teenager and lost a job I loved because of some trivial mistake I made, you came running home because I called you crying and you hugged me and let me be really upset about it, and then you said “let’s go job hunting” and we had fun doing it. And that day I found my career. I applied at hotel front desks at your suggestion because you said “I always thought it would be interesting” and now almost a decade later, I just got promoted at the exact right company, in the exact right position for me, still in the hotel industry. It’s because of you. All because of you.
It hurts not being able to tell you, but it makes me feel stronger knowing that if you could see me now, you’d be so proud. I will continue to make you proud. I will keep fighting everyday. I’ll do it for you, but for me too.
I love you. My heart yearns for you.
— Carrie Ryan
Lori Gottlieb, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed
"The butterflies land upon my skin
And I start to feel real again
So I cry and I cry
And beg and plead
Someone please wake me..."
There Are Somethings That Have To Go On @angelseams
There are certain parts of my past that are tangible
I can touch the pages where my deceased rabbit gnawed on my favorite book
Not destroying it, just leaving his little marks.
There are certain parts of my memory that remain totally intact
The way it felt when my mom held me as I cried, not knowing how close I was to dying.
There are certain parts of my life that I can look at
And see where I made the absolute wrong decisions, and how they led me on difficult paths
There are certain parts that I know I made the right ones,
Like when I see his face and know all the secrets he holds for me and the safe place he will always be.
But my memory has holes, it is imperfect, just like me.
And I regret that. I hold anger in my heart about that.
Because I want to be able to remember every part of my moms eyes, even when they were in pain.
I want to remember the sound of her laugh forever, and not just for now.
I want to remember the conversations we had, the important ones, that my human memory already stored away
I want to remember.
So I can keep her. Just a little longer.
the front door feels stiff and heavy
and the sound of your voice
is not comforting anymore.
i don’t know how we ended up like this;
all online orders and separate evenings.
all papers and paranoia.
i haven’t felt at home in a long time
and while i know it’s not your fault, i can’t
help but want to sit the blame in your chair.
i’m sorry. i know it’s me.
i should have tried harder, acknowledged
more, loved purer, been better.
but you... you should have been enough.
Streamside Wildflowers, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming: © riverwindphotography, August 2020
Lately I’ve been standing in front of windows
Staring blankly at the shape of my shadows
I remember what it looked like when you were there too
Some who come by claim to feel your ghost,
Sometimes i swear i still hear you call out
Lately the place where you once stood feels colder
I put on my big coat and sit in that spot for hours
I can see the book shelves, the old couch,
I can hear the laughter, the sound of the tv
But the one thing i can never recall is touch,
I wish I still knew what it felt like to have you hug me.
This.
grief is the price for love
for gracie, 2002-april 5, 2020: i’m sorry
The part of grief we don’t really discuss is the loss of identity. In the past few weeks, I have come to the realization that I have no idea who I am. I think I have always struggled with my identity, especially in my youth, but never so much as an adult and never so profound. My mom is gone. I’ll never see her again. I’ll never talk to her, I’ll never tell her the things that would make her proud of me. These things are no longer possible. I am also no longer my mother’s daughter. I am no longer her caregiver. When I add in the layer of all this happening during a pandemic, and the loss of identity in doing things I used to love, I feel overwhelming lost.
I am trying to express myself in different ways. I got a new tattoo, I dyed my hair blue, I’ve been trying out different styles of clothing, but I all in all feel like a fraud. I feel like I’m faking my whole life, and I wake up each morning to work from home and then lay on my couch to watch shows that mean nothing to me. I’m not sure I ever had a full understanding of who I was as a person, as an identity, but now it’s like these huge dark void and some days I don’t see the point in trying to figure it all out.
I miss my mom. But I also miss who I was when my mom was alive. I miss helping her, I miss having a purpose besides the mundane daily activities of my job. Before my mom got really sick, I identified myself by my career, now I don’t find the same passion in that.
My therapist said I should journal, but this is where I landed with these thoughts. Maybe some people can identify with this and commiserate with me, maybe not. But I know I have to get my feelings out. I have to figure out a way to fill this void, this hole that’s taken over my life.
I look into the mirror every time I walk past one, or near one. I poke and pull, pinch and feel. I obsess. It’s not because I like what I see, it’s not because I enjoy these moments, of staring back at this creature. It’s because I don’t.
I’m twenty-one, and I thought this would have ended by now. The way I feel about myself, I thought I would have grown out of my body issues. Maybe by now I would have grown into my body , but I haven’t. Or perhaps I have though, that’s not how I feel.
I feel like a hermit crab who can’t fit into the shell that was given to them, and they weren’t left with any other choices. I keep trying to escape my shell, find another option, but there is none. Just this one.
I listen quietly when my boyfriend tells me that I’m beautiful, and sexy, but my silence is a mask I hide behind, I’m screaming on the inside. “Stop lying, stop!” I see pretty girls and I assume he wants them more than me. I believe that he can love me for the things on the inside, but to me, that’s not all that great either.
My friends are beautiful. but they shame themselves too. Most of the time, I think when they are just saying they hate their bodies, that they know they’re gorgeous. Part of me knows they are crying on the inside too,
I’m scared that I will always be trying to change myself to fit the world around me, I’m terrified that I will never look in the mirror and not have to obsess over the things that aren’t right, which is pretty much, I mean it is, everything.
I’m afraid that if I have a daughter that she will never be able to smile into a mirror either.
She was so many parts of me
so many that it took losing her
to notice all the ways
It has brought me more evil than I can comprehend,
Stolen things from me that I knew I would lose, but hurt just the same
It has taken things I never knew I would have to miss.
I have spoken of those things aloud daily
And it feels like something foreign coming from my mouth.
I think about how my voice never sounds like my voice,
When I hear it recorded
I think about how I hate it, how I want to run from it.
These words I speak, as I try to verbalize what haunts me
I want even more to run from them –
to hide from them
though they always find me.
Like my older brother, playing hide and seek
Stronger, faster, better
They find me even in the dark.
I can ignore my fears, I can pretend I am OK
I can dye my hair blue and get a tattoo
And say “the wound is healing and so am I”
I am learning to accept these words as my own
I don’t why all of a sudden you are on my heart, but you are. I’m not sure I’ll be able to have a conversation with you, so this is the best I can do. I need to get this out so I can try to face the consequences of my actions. We were both young, and I know we both made mistakes. But I think what is on my mind is the lack of accountability I had at the time for mine. I have learned, I have grown up, so that’s something I need to come to terms with and maybe I can forgive myself.
So, what was it that I did wrong? I never apologized for anything I said that hurt you in and immediately after high school. I don’t know what it was, I cannot even remember, I remember what people said that I said, and I can’t remember whether or not those things were true. I was 17-18 and I simply can’t remember. But I know that I said hurtful things, and for that reason I am sorry. I know that I acted as is if I was better and for that I am sorry. I know that I am not, and I was not any better than you.
I am also sorry that I didn’t hold enough space for your mental illness. I didn’t understand then. Why you wouldn’t be there when I felt I needed you, why you would be absent from my life. I am sorry that I used my anger instead of empathy towards you. I am sorry I blamed you for things that were never in your control. I’m sorry for holding onto anger instead of figuring out ways to understand. I am truly, very sorry. I am also sorry for the things that I did that caused you pain that I don’t even know about. I wish we could have a discussion so I could be held accountable. But all I can do is try to be better in my other relationships and friendships in the future. I still hold in my heart so much love for you and so much care, and I wish you all the brightness and happiness in the world.
Love,
me
