The world moves faster than ever, each year fuller and longer, yet somehow short all at the same time. Like many of the previous years, I don’t have much in the way of new things to say. Maybe just a different way to say the same things. Who really knows anymore.
Similar to last year – I am en route to the East Coast for my WildernessFusion class. While the class does not fall on the true date this year, it is close enough that I feel as though I am again going to be sharing this rather Dark & Twisty place that is my mind during this week.
I have even less ‘updates’ to share than I did last year in terms of what my family is up to on this Anniversary. I, like many others, hope they are well.
For me personally, this time of year is incredibly difficult and rather despair-ridden. I often opt to stay busy or ‘distracted’ as my classes would call it, only touching just under the surface tension of the water that is the bottomless well of grief for just a moment, and even then barely feeling the temperature change. I occasionally remark on something, and then let it fade away just as quickly as it came up. At this point in my life I rather feel like I am inflicting my own Dark & Twisty upon those who are in my life. I have little-to-no faith that anyone could actually desire to be in my presence when in such a place.
At the 5-year mark I noted how much more anger and sadness was in my well of grief. This year I am noticing that under the anger, grief and sadness – is despair. Deep. Soul wrenching. Despair. Despair of the reality of the events. Despair that so many people walk around quoting ‘the tragedy’ in my life with no context. No understanding of what that feels like 24/7. What it means to live in such a reality. The fact that people even ask me questions like – do you still wonder “why did He do it?” or my personal favorite – “Do you feel like you’ve moved on yet?”.
Um.
No.
Fuck.
No.
Am I really supposed to? I cannot change the past, and pretending like it never happened just makes me crazy. So yes, I use the word despair versus sadness or grief on purpose.
I rarely go longer than a moment or two without thinking of my Mother in some context. I don’t know that I can, nor do I have the desire to remove her from my thoughts. She is in everything I hold dear. Nature. Dogs. Mountains. Adventure. People important to me. The list goes on. Often people ask me, “where did you learn such [insert praise words that I do not like – i.e courage, loyalty, strength, love, etc]?” and the answer is often in some form ‘My Mother’. She is entirely human – made up of faults and good intentions gone wrong – yet somehow, instead of running away from them or pretending that she wasn’t just as prone to such base, shallow whims as anyone else, she owned them. And that made her larger than life. The integrity of her commitment to living fully and deeply – even in the not-so-pretty places.
Often we would have these intense, complex talks, spanning hours or even days. Life, death, spirituality, love, greed, the human experience and just about anything you could think of. Often she would ask my perspective, my opinions – not just to have something to respond to, but because in her own words, I ‘had more depth than anyone’ she knew – and ‘there were things she needed to learn from me’. So many times she would say to me in full sincerity, “I don’t know why I was given this gift in life, why I was chosen, but I am truly privileged to be your Mother”.
I didn’t always understand, and still don’t fully grasp what she meant by that statement. I wish I could remember if I ever shared a similar sentiment with her. I deeply regret that I don’t know for sure that I did. Because I am, even with everything that has happened, beyond lucky to have had such a great Mother, teacher and friend. Most of my time is spent in pursuit of the person my Mother insisted I am… One poorly placed step after another.
Much like Cheryl Strayed in the popular memoir – turned movie ‘Wild’, I am on a lifelong journey of living closely to my Mother in the physical reality of which she is no longer apart of, yet still very much alive in spirit.
My Life SHATTERED on this day 6 years ago. For reasons I shall not go into, I was already a struggling survivor of things less than ideal in life when Mom was killed. In an already Dark & Twisty world – Mom was my Sun. She was my champion. She was a humble reminder of what simple joy in the human experience can be. The power of unconditional love and the strength of choice. I wish I could express the depth of her meaning to myself and everyone she touched.
Renée in Alaska
I see the understanding in others who have lost their mothers suddenly. They touch on places I personally struggle to get the words for. These little collections of sentences make me feel the depths of that well of grief where recounting the entire story of loss doesn’t even brush the surface. Many of you may have read the book by Yann Martel or watched the movie they made recently of ‘Life of Pi’. From his book, he is narrating his story of losing his whole family, and says this:
“To lose a brother is to lose someone with whom you can share the experience of growing old, who is supposed to bring you a sister-in-law and nieces and nephews, creatures who people the tree of your life and give it new branches. To lose your father is to lose the one whose guidance and help you seek, who supports you like a tree trunk supports its branches. To lose your mother, well, that is like losing the sun above you. It is like losing–I’m sorry, I would rather not go on.”
I agree Mr. Martel.
Author Kristin Hannah also neatly sums up what it is like to go on living without your Mother figure:
“A daughter without her mother is a woman broken. It is a loss that turns to arthritis and settles deep into her bones. ”
And a more recent author (for me anyway) Cheryl Strayed – Wild:
“I didn’t get to grow up and pull away from her and bitch about her with my friends and confront her about the things I’d wished she’d done differently and then get older and understand that she had done the best she could and realize that what she had done was pretty damn good and take her fully back into my arms again. Her death had obliterated that. It had obliterated me. It had cut me short at the very height of my youthful arrogance. It had forced me to instantly grow up and forgive her every motherly fault at the same time that it kept me forever a child, my life both ended and begun in that premature place where we’d left off. She was my mother, but I was motherless. I was trapped by her, but utterly alone. She would always be the empty bowl that no one could full. I’d have to fill it myself again and again and again.
One of the worst things about losing my mother at the age I did was how very much there was to regret.”
All these quotes and more share a little tidbit of my reality. Both the wonder at having such a Mother, and the absolute agony of losing her before her time, in such a sudden and terrifying way. I both want to share these things with you, and never write them down let-alone speak them aloud.
And finally, for my family:
“The amount that she loved us was beyond her reach. It could not be quantified or contained. It was the ten thousand named things in the Tao Te Ching’s universe and then ten thousand more. Her love was full-throated and all-encompassing and unadorned. Every day she blew through her entire reserve.” ~ Cheryl Strayed.
And this is mine:
“What a gift we were given.
To know you.
To be known by you.
To love you.
To be so loved by you.
What a curse we bear.
To know your loss.
To feel your magic fade.
To live in agony.
To carry your light on.
What a contradiction we live in.
This gift.
This curse.
That love your love connects.”
~ J
Life of Journey 