*Written on October 6th, 2017
Today, when the sun rises, when afternoon rolls around and my eyes and soul automatically check the clock at 4:44 p.m., it will have been three weeks since I lost you, Mom.
I awoke at 2:22 a.m. The moon was full. The children were asleep, all piled like puppies in a heap on our bed. I knew, as I do every midnight-morning now, that sleep would not return to me. I had two options: lay there and pretend it would, or get up, make some coffee, and pour my heart out onto paper.
My heart, mind and soul beat to a different rhythm now. They race around like frantic trapped animals, only safe and secure when Jessy – my sister, my other, my soulmate – is on the other end of a telephone line.
Grief is my new family member. It’s an elephant in the room, one that very few people will acknowledge or talk about. It takes up more space in the bed than my three children. It follows me from room to room. It prevents me from remembering if I’ve eaten each day, if it’s okay to be awake through the night hours and drink coffee while watching the moon-set. My mind is twisted now, Mom, composed of programs I can’t execute.
Like a crashed car that is mangled and misshapen, I lie on the edge of a smooth road I used to travel. The view from this gutter where I lay, only a few feet from where I used to stand, is otherworldly. I never noticed that the sky was so immense, the trees so tall, the grass so high. I never noticed the gaping mouth of life, prepared to chew up and swallow small things like myself.
I wonder, with my half mind, if I will ever rise up and stand again. I wonder how broken my pieces are, how repairable they might be, how many lifetimes of healing my complex being might need.
And as the moon slips down over an Eastern rise, and my last sips of coffee lose the heat of life, the quiet of this dark night finally soothes me. My heart slows down, I let rest my mind.
With sleep in my eyes and a sense of surrender, I join the sleeping pile of puppies who ever seek their tender mother.
Namaste, Momela … I will meet you soon in dreams.
44 Celebrations 