Waves of Grief

The new normal is still hard

The Nearly Full Moon and Jupiter over Mitchell Farm

The sadness is at times overwhelming as we come up to the anniversary of my father‘s passing. I realised something recently on my morning walk with Opal. In a sense, I lost both my parents three years ago. My father to physical death and my mother to another stroke. While the physical body of my mother is still here on earth, the mother that I remember, the mother who raised me, is no longer here. I come to this realisation in waves and from different angles. I think because it is so close to the anniversary of both these events it is hitting me harder right now. I really miss my dad. I miss so many people who were so important to me, most of them passing in the last three years. It just feels like there are gaping holes in my heart. I cannot seem to shake this funk that I am in, as the holidays draw closer. My husband knows something is wrong but I cannot articulate to him these feelings. He isn’t a safe person to share emotions with so I close down. This is in part because of who he is and how I am but also because I am finding it hard to put words around my feelings. My husband is black and white; tangible. Nothing about how I feel is tangible. I am an amorphous blob of hurt and hurting; grief and grieving.

Along with this third anniversary of my father’s death, we also have my mother’s birthday to navigate. Visits to my mother are sporadic and based around the weather and boat schedule. Meteorological predictions being what they are these days, I can usually plan ahead up to a week out and choose a day where winds seem favorable and boats will ferry me to and from with enough time on the mainland. It’s a weird way to live but it is what it is. For now it works. In regards to her birthday, I will travel off one day and return the next. This way I get to see her across two days along with catching up with other family and some friends.

My mother seems to be settling into this new chapter of hers. She is well looked after and has everything she needs at her fingertips, or at least not far away. Her visit here over Thanksgiving weekend was interesting. She had only been gone for six weeks at that point but there were too many changes in both her and the place she had left behind for it to be a pleasant and enjoyable few days. I was cognisant of not wanting to change too much too quickly, knowing she’d be back for this visit and not wanting to make her feel unwelcome. My husband, though, had other plans. I have no idea how much she was aware of what was different. If she noticed the room she had been living in for the past 18 months had gone from white to yellow and been completely rearranged, she never mentioned it to me. We had cancelled the television service and although there was now a smart TV in her space, she couldn’t understand how it worked. We had found a free to air game show channel so she would have that continuity but it didn’t seem to matter. We had returned the hospital bed so she was back to sleeping on her old bed, a too soft futon which she had originally loved and then came to hate. It was impossible for her to get herself up and out of it so each morning someone had to be there to help her. Even writing about it now, nearly a month past the event, I am exhausted and sad and discouraged. What I came away with, from those few days of having her back here, was that I have no idea how I did what I did for so long. How any of us survived it, really. Such a heaviness of feeling when I tap into that space of our past three years.

Now that she is away, living elsewhere, the sense of freedom which I thought would come rushing in is not even creeping in. I don’t feel free. I still feel the burden of her well-being. It breaks my heart each time I leave her after a visit. I can usually make it to my car before I break down. I have left my mother so many times over the years, to travel and later to return to my home in another hemisphere. I am used to the practice of it but it is still heart wrenching, no less so now. The only thing which eases my anguish is that I know she is in the right place for her right now. There is no question this could be any other way.

If I were living on the mainland and not separated by open ocean, I would most likely visit her every day. My day would revolve around her, much like it did on the island. Now my weeks revolve around when I can visit so it’s not the day to day but it’s still a tether; a cord which keeps us connected. I am grateful for this connection and as difficult as all of this is, it could be worse - has been worse - and for now we get to visit with each other, sporadically, as mother and daughter with a fair bit of caretaking thrown in still but not like it used to be. I am able to rest in between times and my mother is able to get the care she needs from people who are trained to help her get it.

Now to navigate Christmas…

Wishing everyone ease and grace and kindness, especially to yourselves, during this holiday season. It’s not easy but we are doing it.

A spot of red in the snowy landscape | Holiday ferry feel