Thursday night, wondering where May went

[ksmith]

It's almost June. How did this happen? Received a letter from the local women's health center reminding me that it's time for the annual 'mash 'em in the copier' appointment. I thought, dammit, I just went through that. Then I remembered that I had gone around the time Mom entered the hospital last year, so yeah, mid-June.

It will be a year on 21 July that Mom died, and the weeks leading up were varying degrees of horrible. I'm good at putting things out of my mind, but every once in a while, something sneaks up and bites. She'd be loving the way the Cubs are playing. She loved late Spring flowers, and the weather before it got too hot.

Like a number of folks, I've been following jaylake's good fight, his victory. Cheering him on. But what struck me was how many people he had around him to help him through, friends and lovers and child and family. Because of simple attrition, and circumstances, Mom had me. That was it. There were other people who loved her. Other people who cared. But Mom didn't want them to come until it was too late, and she did realize at the end that maybe it would have been better if she'd asked them to come earlier, maybe even years earlier, even though she didn't enjoy long distance travel herself and usually just wanted to be alone so she could do her work and watch baseball and cook. The thing with people, though, is that there has to be give and take. If you want them to be there, you have to take them as they are. Take them when they're annoying. Aggravating. Scream-making. Take them when they come, sometimes when you don't want them around. Make time. Make room. Make an effort. Even when all you want to do is close the door and get on with your little sliver of life.

There should have been a roomful of people there at the end. It will always bother me. It will always hurt.

Comments

[msagara.livejournal.com]

I have tried to write something six times in response to this, and I'm full of fail.

I was off-line this time last year, and the year before it, and I missed this; I didn't realize that it had been less than a year since you lost your mother. I know people who couldn't write a word for a year -- a full year -- after the loss of a parent (in many cases, two years), and the fact that you're writing -- even slowly -- fills me with respect and admiration.

I can't understand your loss, not truly; it's left for my future. But, she had you, there. You were there.

I only hope that you had people there, for you, while you were dealing with all of this.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I know people who couldn't write a word for a year -- a full year -- after the loss of a parent (in many cases, two years), and the fact that you're writing -- even slowly -- fills me with respect and admiration.

The thing is, my Dad passed away in late 2003. After that, I didn't write for almost two years. May 2004, and I still couldn't pull phrases together, much less sentences. There was nothing there, and I felt sure I would never write anything ever again. Mid, late 2005, I started coming around. I will always remember WFC-Madison fondly because of the reinforcement I received. People wanted stories from me. They still wanted to read what I wrote. It helped. But even so, it was Summer 2006 before I really started picking up steam again, writing a couple of short works, then working on ENDGAME in earnest.

I realized eventually that my inability to write wasn't just because of my Dad. I don't know how this will sound, but after he passed, it hit me that Mom was 83 and there were no nonagenarians in her family. I knew I'd be going through the same thing again in a few years, and I think I did much of my mourning ahead of time. I can't say that was the best frame of mind to be in--my BP ran a little high during that time, and there were other indications that I was under constant, low-level tension. But I spent time with Mom, and even when the words started to come back, the urgency didn't follow. Not for a while. Writing took a back seat.