still thinking… again.

*Scroll down for Part 1 of 3.

It’s a weird place in which I find myself these days. I’m relieved, but worried, but not too worried about our financial well-being. I’m missing my mother (always), but I find myself enjoying Christmas for the first time in three years. I actually went Christmas shopping. Yep, the Grinch came out of her cave and walked into an actual store & purchased actual Christmas gifts. Without snarling or cursing even one time.  The Christmas shit everywhere isn’t making me angry & bitter this year…. Bobby and I put up a tree, and I’ve decorated our mantel & dining room table, and am typing right this minute by the light of our lovely Christmas tree.

Why the change, you (& Bobby) ask? When Sue was home for Thanksgiving, she said something that pierced my little Grinchy heart — that one of the things she hates most about Christmas is going to her friends’ houses, where there are lots of gifts under the tree and she’s reminded of how much our family has lost/is losing. As obvious as it may seem, I suddenly realized that Sue is still a child in lots of ways. While I genuinely don’t miss the Christmas gifts, she DOES. Light-bulb moment. So this year, Sue’s gonna have gifts under the tree. Not expensive gifts, or big, earth-shattering gifts, but she’s going to have presents to open on Christmas morning. Cancer has taken enough of her childhood — it’s not going to continue to make trips to her “normal” friends’ houses more painful than they have to be.

Generally speaking, the holidays make me feel even less normal than usual. The commercials, the cheeriness, the happy family talk… there’s an implied pressure to feel & act a certain way. It’s easy to see why people become (more) depressed during the holiday season. Which is why I openly declared my Grinchiness during Christmas 2007 (much to the dismay of my then-coworkers). Sometimes it just takes too much effort to pretend.

I was in a very dark place this time two years ago (click here for post). A very, very dark place. If nothing else, this blog has helped document the fact that I am indeed improving.

And although I’m noticeably less bitter this year, it’s still hard. I don’t think Christmas will ever not be hard. Yesterday, I subbed with a lady who’s about Mama’s age. She was chattering about her children, her new grandbaby that’s on the way, shopping for their gifts, going to the Christmas parade, how much she’s looking forward to having them all at her house on Christmas Eve. It’s hard, ya’ll. It’s hard to listen with a neutral, interested expression on my face, and act like her words aren’t causing me pain. Listening to her talk is a glimpse into what would have been, and I find myself shying away from letting my brain go down that path. There’s no point in even thinking about how it would have been. There’s no point. So I smile & nod & try not to let her words go beyond my ears into my brain.

I can say that from where I am this very minute, Christmas Present resembles what the “new normal” will be more closely than 2006, 07, or 08 did. Finding a new normal isn’t something that happens in one year or even two years… I remember people talking about “the new normal” like it’s a destination to be reached, which is completely misleading. It’s year three, and I’m just now beginning to see a glimpse of Christmas Future.

There are many stupid things that people have said (and continue to say) to me after Mama died… things like “everything happens for a reason,” “God never gives us more than we can handle” (for a full-fledged rant on this one, click here), and “Now your mama is your guardian angel.” There’s one in particular, though, that actually has proven to be appropriate…  “something good will come of this.”  This one’s especially hard to hear when your hurt and loss is still so open and raw. Something good coming from this gaping hole that used to be me? Um, I don’t think so.

But now, two years later, I find myself thinking that amazingly enough, a few of those platitude-spewing people were right on the money.

Here’s the thing. I do NOT think that God took my mother for a reason. I don’t think that God took my mother at all. Cancer took my mother. But when things go awry (as is always the case with cancer), positive changes can result eventually. EVENTUALLY, not immediately. It took me two years + two weeks to even see this small glimmer.

The glimmer is this — losing my mother has allowed me to become a person that I wouldn’t have been otherwise.

During a conversation with my sister last night (our first in months), she said, “Mama made us alike.”

And she’s right. Mama did. It wasn’t like she forced us, or insisted… no, not at all. It’s just that my mother’s presence was so strong, so passionate, that we adjusted to allow for the huge force that she was. She gave us a moral value system and a sense of home. But what she DIDN’T give us was options. We, mostly Jennifer & I, parroted so many of her views and her perceptions, and we really, truly THOUGHT they were our views and perceptions.

This is not to say that my mother was a dictator or overbearing or a bad mom. She was the polar opposite. What I’m talking about is common among many mothers & daughters I know. She teaches you how to keep a tidy house. She teaches you to wash your hair and shave your legs. She teaches you what’s right and wrong. And her own perceptions & ideas get all mixed up in that, so that you become, in a sense, a mirror of her. How many times have we thought or said some version of this thought: “My mama’s way is the right way”? I think that’s why many women find their mother-in-laws oppressive… because they’re NOT our mother. When we hit college, we branch out on some topics like politics, religion, or we might even date someone our mothers don’t approve of just to assert our independence. But underneath, the voice of our mothers are still there, throwing in their $0.2 on every single decision.

Then my mother died, and I had to learn how to be a separate identity. It’s something I would have never, ever chosen, but it wasn’t optional. Is this separate identity an altogether new creation? Or is it a version of myself that was always inside, and I just had no reason or inclination to let her come to the surface? Probably a combination of the two.

My separate identity has pierced ears.

She never goes home to Townville. Why? Because she doesn’t want to.  Mama’s not there, so why bother?

She learns cooking, and sewing, and countless other household tasks from the internet because there’s no mother here to teach her the “right” way to do it.

She has joined a church, which she would not have done if her mother was still here, and she is becoming more and more active with that church & its people.

She doesn’t go shopping anymore because her shopping buddy isn’t here, and she doesn’t even miss it (the shopping, not the buddy).

She is more independent, and becoming more so everyday.

Validation from family is no longer a necessary step in her decision-making process.

She now understands the concept of grace, and knows that following the rules of legalism actually has no impact on her spiritual outcome — thus the meaning of grace.

My separate identity is also more cynical, less compassionate, and more out-spoken.

She’s smarter than the old Sarah, and I respect her more because she had to go through hell to get here.

I no longer have the option of being my Mama’s little girl. I miss it every single day. I don’t think there will ever be a time that there’s not a lost little girl inside crying for her mother. But I’m finally – FINALLY – starting to see a glimmer of the good that’s happening because of this tragedy.

Does anyone else ever look around and think “Is this really my life? How did I get here?” I don’t really mean that in a negative way… just more of a pondering sort of way. I feel surprised sometimes — even though I know I’ve been here the whole time, it occasionally often feels like where I am now just snuck up on me.

September weighs heavily. Every day becomes a mental montage of “this day two years ago, [fill in blank here].” There’s a feeling of disbelief. HOW can I still be here, still be breathing and functioning normally, two years after losing Mama? It feels like a betrayal of her, like she wasn’t as important as she should have been, if I can live two years without her. This is permanent. This is real. She’s really gone. And today a year from now, I’ll be saying “it’s been three years.”  And then five years, and then 12, and then 18. And she’ll become dimmer and more abstract, part of my past with no place in the future. I wish I could drag my feet and make time move slower — every day that passes puts me farther away from her.

She’s so far away now. I can’t remember the last time I felt her presence. I wonder if she thinks of me as often as I think of her. Somehow, I doubt it.