Posts Tagged mother

Part 2 of 3 – Christmas Past, Present & Future

December 8, 2009 at 9:28 pm · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , , ,

*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.

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thankful-ish

November 24, 2009 at 10:42 am · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , ,

Thanksgiving without my mother is different. Really, really different. Dinner’s at my house instead of Mama & Daddy’s. I’m making the grocery list & cooking instead of arriving just in time to help. We’re using a sweet potato souffle recipe written in Mama’s small, neat handwriting, and trying not to think too much about it because tears in the sweet potato souffle just don’t work.

We have Thanksgiving Past on video. Everyone laughing in my parents’ kitchen. Mama fixing the turkey and laughing about it being on videotape, because it’s just one of those things that seems too insignificant to record at the time. She looks at the camera with her big smile, and says “Yep, you can watch this when I’m dead and gone.” and breaks into her signature laugh. It would be funny if it weren’t just a little too true.

I have things to be thankful for, I do. I’m thankful that Sue’s coming home tonight. I’m thankful for my & Bobby’s marriage — that we’ve been able to sit down and begin to figure out this unemployment thing together. I’m thankful for my lovely house.. it IS my happy place, and not a day goes by that I don’t actively love it. I’m thankful for my sisters — it’s hard to imagine how this motherless Thanksgiving would be without them. I’m thankful for my two beautiful nieces, because their mere existence makes every occasion happier and more entertaining and more family-centered. No matter how distant our islands become — mine, Sue’s, Jennifer’s, & Daddy’s — we have our love for Maggie & Sadie as a common thread. I’m thankful for those home videos of Thanksgiving Past — the word “priceless” doesn’t even begin to describe their value. I’m thankful for my mother — she’s not here now, but I had 29 years with her, and for that I’m thankful.

I miss her, I do. Her absence is in everything — every plan, every menu, every moment has an empty, aching hole that she left. If someone had told me that you can still feel the urge to call someone two years & two months after you last talked to them, I’m not sure I would have believed them. But it’s very, regrettably true.

So off I go to do Thanksgiving Present in a new and motherless way. As strange as it sounds, it’s sometimes still so difficult to believe that this is real. It feels like 50 years since I’ve called her & heard her voice say “hello” on the other end, but it also feels like only maybe a week or so. There’s a new sense of time when you’ve lost someone who was a part of your everyday life — days can feel like weeks or minutes. Confusing, but also comforting… I’ll bet that’s what heaven’s like, but without the pain of missing.

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a separate identity

October 3, 2009 at 9:06 am · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , , ,

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.

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coping

September 23, 2009 at 7:29 am · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , ,

Relieved to say I have the two-year anniversary behind me. The day itself was spent just being sad — looking through my Mama box, acknowledging the loss. I haven’t done that in a while… I’ve gotten really good at slamming the door on thoughts that are too painful. But Thursday, I let them in. Cried and cried until I ran out of tears, under the covers with one of Mama’s nightgowns. There’s physical pain when you go to that place, like your heart is actually, physically ripping.

That evening, I went back to a message board called “Motherless Daughters” that I hadn’t frequented in a while. I found that, amazingly enough, I actually HAVE progressed. There were newcomers to the group, who were only two, seven, ten weeks out from their mothers’ deaths. For the first time, I was able to articulate my own path in order to make someone else feel less alone. There’s something very comforting about being told that you’re normal, even though you feel anything but. I remember being that “new” girl, feeling like there really was no point in waking up tomorrow, feeling so completely broken, so utterly alone.

There’s a tinge of guilt to all of this, looking at the calendar and knowing that I’ve gone two years without my mother. I haven’t spoken to her once in two years. I haven’t heard her voice, or answered a phone call from her in two years. 760+ days. It seems impossible. She was such a part of my identity, my everyday life. It’s difficult to comprehend that I’ve just gone on living without her.

I’m reading “Motherless Daughters” by Hope Edelman again. The first time I tried, it was too fresh and I was too angry. But now, it’s clicking.

Last night at my GriefShare group, I talked about counting down the hours and minutes until Mama’s death. As soon as the calendar hits September 1st, the countdown begins. “Two years ago, I was _____,” and “two years ago, Mama was _____.” A lady in my group, whose teenage daughter was killed in a car accident almost four years ago, told me that the countdown would fade away eventually.

I have mixed feelings about that. As painful as the countdown is, it keeps me close to Mama.

Oh, and I need to add a credit here: The “after” picture in this post was taken by Tiffiney, an incredibly talented photographer, mother of sweet, tiny Sadie Mae, and a beautiful, compassionate person. Click here for her blog.

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September 17th

September 23, 2009 at 6:42 am · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , ,

I sit here surrounded by the contents of my “Mama Box” — a beautiful box that I’ve stuffed anything death- or cancer-related. I’ve never gone through the box… today is the first time. I’ve only opened it just wide enough to slide a new memento in.

There are sympathy cards that I read for the first time today. Some are generic and simple, some contain hand-written condolences, some even include stories. My favorite card came several months after Mama’s death from one of her best friends. It’s a long, chatty recounting of what Mama’s friendship meant (and means) to her — the trinkets that Mama bought her over the years, the shopping trips they went on, the first time they met, when this sweet lady thought, “She has great friendship potential.”

There are cd’s of MRI’s and CT scans from three difference cancer centers… we were so determined to find someone who would give us hope. There are lab reports — the final one, dated Aug 13, 2007, says “Evidence of extensive progression of metastatic disease involving the lungs, liver, and bones diffusely.” And that was a week before they found it in her brain as well.

There are leftover invitations to Mama’s 50 birthday party in April 2007. We had to have it early because we were going to Duke’s Cancer Center on her actual 50th birthday, on May 1.There are a few pictures of that day — she’s wearing her favorite pink dress, the one we chose to bury her in, the one her body is still wearing in the cemetery of Town.ville Bap.tist Church.

There’s a pink enamel butterfly pin that Jennifer and I bought her in the Duke Cancer Center gift shop. It became a favorite, and she wore it on her linen dresses often during the following months.

There’s the luminary bag that I decorated for the 2005 Relay for Life in Charlotte, NC, when we thought cancer was behind us. It reads, “In Honor of Denise. We’re so proud of you, Mama! Love, Sarah, Jennifer, & Susanna” She was so, so proud when she participated in the Survivor Lap, and we watched her walked by and cheered.

There’s a silver charm from Jennifer’s wedding in 2006. At her bridal luncheon, we did a “charm cake” where each attendant has a charm with a fortune attached to it. I did all the charms except my own, which Mama said she would take care of so that it would be a surprise. Mine is a tiny baby carriage, with the attached fortune: “A Baby Carriage for Sarah. A baby carriage is coming your way with a sweet little bundle to light up your day…”  So much pain and regret I have that I waited to start this baby process.

There are pink ribbon items, so many I can’t count. Bracelets and pins, all with the pink ribbon. People wanted to show support, to show that they were thinking about me. They didn’t know that the pink ribbon makes me want to vomit.

There’s a program from her funeral, along with the beautifully haunting pictures that Tiffiney took. It seemed like we put so much time into that program, selecting the perfect poem, the perfect hymns, the perfect people to be a part of the service. Yet I realize now that it was only a few hours during those blurry days from Sept 17 to Sept 20th, when the funeral took place.

There are notes written in Bobby’s handwriting… people to call, phone numbers, his contacts at the funeral home. I didn’t realize how much Bobby did during those wretched days.

There’s a pretty fabric-bound journal. On the inside cover is Mama’s neat, small handwriting. It’s dated Dec 12, 2006, just a few days after we received a prognosis of 18 months to 3 years. It says:

Sarah, who I’ve loved the longest,
We ARE thankful for the time we have been given — and will receive! We have incredible happiness in our futures. “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.”
I love you with all my heart!
Mama

Wrapped in a piece of white tissue paper are her eyeglasses. We kept them instead of sending them down into the ground with her body.

There are hand-drawn sketches of her gravestone that I did to show the gravestone guy.

And the business cards of oncologists, and triage nurses, and office staff.

A copy of her online obituary.

A copy of the FMLA paperwork so that I could take medical leave after the brain metastasis diagnosis.

Her toothbrush that I kept at my house with her name on it.

And there’s a children’s book called “Someday.” We found three copies in her room afterward, and knew that she meant them for us. If you have a daughter, you should consider buying this book for her. It’s lovely.

I hope to read it to my own daughter one day.

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i hate september

September 13, 2009 at 9:18 am · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , , ,

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.

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grief trigger

July 16, 2009 at 8:41 am · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , , , ,

This past Sunday, one of Susanna’s high school friends was killed in an accident. He was 21, the oldest of three boys, a student at Clemson. This week has been rough. Hello, understatement. She and I talked about the loss Sunday before going to bed, where the nightmares ensued. I dreamed that Mama was alive and I was bargaining with her to stay here, crying, begging her not to leave me. For hours, this went on. Finally got up, feeling hungover and exhausted. Was greeted by Sue sitting quietly, with puffy eyes and dark circles. She had dreamed that our dad died, and she was an orphan whom no one wanted. She called into work and slept on the sofa… said that she could sleep as long as she knew that I was in the room with her.

The funeral was last night — the first funeral that Sue has attended since our mother’s. It was a 5-year reunion for Sue’s high school class for the worst imaginable reason. Afterward, she & her friends drank. A lot. But the dreams were waiting, because alcohol only works when you’re awake — she woke herself up this morning crying and saying “Mama.”

It sucks, people. It really, really f-ing sucks. You think you’re getting better, that you’re learning to live around the giant, gaping hole. But it’s a slippery slope, and even the smallest nudge sends you hurtling back into that dark, scary place where you’re nothing but a lost, shattered child.

The grief books call it a “sudden, temporary upsurge of grief,” defined as:

brief periods of intense grief which occur when a catalyst (or trigger) reminds one of the absence of the loved one or resurrects memories of the death, the loved one, or feelings about the loss.

These are not the same as missing or thinking about a person, or even shedding a few tears. No, this is overwhelming anguish, like someone has put you in a time machine and sent you back to when it first happened, when you were raw and bleeding, and not sure if getting out of bed was an option.

Obvious triggers are birthdays, the death anniversary, Mother’s Day, and holidays.  But then there are the sneaky little bastards that blindside you when you least expect it. A sudden death like Sue’s friend, a dream, a picture, a song — even something as seemingly harmless as a hand-written recipe or a lady’s dress in church can bring it crashing back down on you like a wave, rolling you over and incapacitating you for minutes, hours, or days.

I find myself saying that it gets “easier.” Not EASY…. easi-ER. But that dark place is never more than a moment away. And is that really easier? Should any form of the word “easy” be applied to this? Easy means “without effort, free from pain, unoppressive.” Not even in my best moments, on my strongest, most “normal” days, does this word fit. It’s always, ALWAYS there, like a dull ache of chronic disease in remission, and the flare-ups, the attacks, never get easier. Perhaps they get briefer… but when you feel your soul and heart shriveling and bleeding for all that’s lost, “easy” is nowhere in sight.

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one less suitcase in my father baggage

June 28, 2009 at 8:55 pm · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , , ,

Thursday night, my dad randomly dropped by around dinnertime. I invited him to stay (whoa, *shocker*), and he did (whoa, even bigger *shocker*). Bobby was working late, so Daddy, Sue and I had dinner together. And honestly, it was the most pleasant time we’ve spent in the same space in a really long time. He was in a quiet, but agreeable mood, and Sue was on an upswing, which means that she had plenty of words to fill any empty spaces. No one brought up any of the sticky or uncomfortable topics — by unspoken agreement, we all seemed to be steering clear of anything that would bring down the evening.

The highlight, in my opinion? This interaction:

Daddy [in a deep SC low-country* drawl]: Sarah, ya know what? You remindin’ me of yo mama mo ever day. I mean, I used to say that Jennifer reminded me of her the most, but just in the last year, you really actin’ mo and mo like her.
And then he laughed… a snicker that implied that this comparison wasn’t entirely a compliment.
Sue: Yep, I agree. The cooking and the yard work. And other stuff…
And she laughs too. And then they look at each other, and then they both laugh.
Me: So for some reason, it feels like I’m being insulted? What’re ya’ll laughing about?
Daddy & Sue: Oh… nothing.
Me [in my sassiest voice]: Well, I’m flattered, regardless of how ya’ll meant it. Humph.

And the conversation left me with a warm, comforted feeling. People, the people who were closest to her, can see my mother in me. There’s no higher compliment.

I can absolutely observe a marked improvement in the relationship that I have with my father. During the last two years, and even in the last two months, we’ve made more progress than during my entire first 30 years. Many variables have contributed — change in circumstances being the most obvious. My mother, who had always served as the mouthpiece and buffer between my father and me, died, leaving Daddy and me to fumble through a harsh, new reality. We’ve also changed — Daddy has settled into his bachelorhood, although he’d be reluctant to admit it. And I’ve become more vocal, more jaded, and more thoughtful than the little girl I was before Mama was rediagnosed.

While Daddy and I were having this conversation last month, I knew it was a breakthrough in our relationship. Even as we were talking, I could feel the importance and impact of our words chipping the rough edges off our relationship, slowly and gradually allowing a new, more mature shape to emerge.

I know that there are many more battles ahead for us, as we continue to go through Mama’s possessions, and as he makes plans to remarry. His and my personalities are fundamentally built to clash, especially over a subject as emotionally charged as the loss of a mother & wife.

But for now, today, I’m going to enjoy thinking of Daddy without the anger, frustration, and bitterness that’s accompanied him in my head for as long as I can remember.  So right now, me & my Daddy?… We’re aight.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* What exactly is a “SC low-country drawl,” you ask? Well, here in South Carolina, we have the upstate and then we have the low-country. There’s a part in the middle too, but Clemson fans don’t make a habit of acknowledging it quite as much since it houses the armpit of the South (Univ of SC — heehee, flame away, all Gamecockies out there!)

Anyway. The upper and lower parts of our state have quite different dialects — I’m not sure that it would be detectable to a non-Southern ear, but to us, it’s quite apparent. My father is from the low-country, down around Charleston (which they say “Chaawl-ston” (no R. Never, ever an R). Although his 30-something years in the upstate have diluted his low-country dialect quite a bit, it’s still very much there.

When I was young, for example, he used to tell me that if I didn’t behave, it was “gonna be kady-bahda-do” (translation: I was going to get my tail spanked if I didn’t straighten up).  Wasn’t until I got older that I realized what he was actually saying… Katy Bar the Door. Ahhhh, you see?  Yeah, I know, probably not. If you have an undeniable curiousity about the origin of this charming little phrase, click here for a witty little NY Times article.

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A lovely lady named Sue

June 10, 2009 at 1:46 pm · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , , , ,

Last week, I was completely distraught about packing up my mother’s clothing and personal belongings. Bree, who has lost a parent as well as her baby daughter Ella, left a very thoughtful comment about how she had a quilt made from her father’s shirts.  The idea immediately appealed to me — makes the task seem a little less permanent, because I know that I’ll be able to still keep her favorite clothing close by.

So I popped an email to the local quilting guild, and asked if perhaps there was a member who would be willing to help us make 3 quilts — one for each of my mother’s daughters — and that we would of course pay whatever was necessary. The next day, I received this response from a lady named Sue:

I am sorry for your loss.  Eight years ago I lost my son and used his shirts to make comforters for my daughters, using  the scraps to make one for myself.  Having the comforters is a great source of comfort for us, as we can  feel his love for us when we wrap up in them.  I would be interested in speaking with you about the project.  I am not interested in being paid — just would appreciate it if you covered my cost (for any supplies that have to be purchased).

I immediately welled up with tears… although any quilt made from Mama’s clothing would be perfect, the fact that this lady has also suffered a heartbreaking loss just seems so appropriately aligned.

Today, Jennifer and I met Sue for the first time. She’s a lovely lady, probably around Mama’s age. She brought the quilt made from her son’s flannel shirts — it was beautifully made and so soft and worn, like a hug. On the back, she had the story of the quilt, a tribute to her son’s life, printed on a piece of fabric and sewn into the seams. Her 24-yr-old boy, her oldest child, was killed in a boat fire — although it’s been 8 years, she talked like it was yesterday. It really was the perfect hand-crafted memory.

And tomorrow, I’m going to spend the day in Townville going through Mama’s things. It’s been a week since it was originally scheduled, and I’m so grateful that I’ve had those days to process the idea instead of just jumping in when the task was so raw, like a fresh wound. Being the planner/organizer that I am, I’m glad to have this goal of picking out the “quilt clothing.”  Of course, the emotion surrounding this project is still very palpable, but I’m trying not to let myself anticipate or envision the actual process. It’ll be hard enough to actually do it without imagining it for days ahead of time.

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Making my way thru a murky morning

June 5, 2009 at 11:03 am · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , ,

I woke up this morning feeling the weight of sheer dread sitting on my chest. Headed out to the front porch with my (decaf, just in case I’m impregnated) coffee to think. By the time Bobby got home from his breakfast meeting, I had worked myself up into a mental hissy-fit. As soon as Bobby stepped on the porch, I started crying and telling him that he doesn’t listen to me. He was bumfuzzled and, to his credit, he sat down calmly and told me to talk to him instead of getting defensive and sassy.

So I cried. I told him the whole story, about how I felt like Mama’s slipping away from me, and nobody understands. I told him that I felt very alone and sad. And he listened quietly, and then told me that I needed to call Daddy and tell him what I had just said, word for word. Bobby said that even though Daddy is undeniably difficult, it was unfair to not even give him the opportunity to understand, and to just assume the worst. I quickly (and ungraciously) replied that I had been giving Daddy chances my entire life, and he had never failed to exhibit his antisocial tendencies. Bobby agreed, but said that recently Daddy had been making an effort (here’s the example that he referenced), and I needed to acknowledge that.

Blah. Sometimes Bobby’s so freakin’…. right.

So I called Daddy. I told him the whole thing — that moving Mama’s clothes was a gigantic deal to me, and I needed to do it in my own way, and I wanted to be alone so that I could grieve. At first he was all snippy and hateful and kept saying “ok, ok, ok” impatiently, as if the entire conversation was inconveniencing him. But as soon as I said the magic G-word, his entire persona changed. “Aaaahhh,” he said, “I see. This is a part of your GRIEVING PROCESS.” (He always talks about THE GRIEVING PROCESS like it’s in all-caps.)

You see, Daddy doesn’t understand emotions like loss and heartbreak. What he does understand, however, is anything with a nice, neat label. If I told him I just didn’t want him there, he would assume I had some anti-father ulterior motive. But if I frame it with labels and keywords, he responds like a charm… kinda like a search engine, or an alien robot. It’s weird.

So the resolution: He asked if I could come next week when I can have the house to myself, so that I can GRIEVE. This is the first time since Mama died that he’s willingly opened the house to me without a chaperon. Of course, he concluded the conversation with “Now, remember, everything in that house belongs to me, so you need to ask me before you take anything.” That’s my father — couldn’t let it pass without slipping at least one of those comments in there.

After talking to Daddy, I read the comments that y’all left on last night’s post…  as always, reading your words makes me feel comforted, less alone. And Ginny, if you’re reading, thank you for the text this morning… it made me cry. And Bree, thank you so, so much for the quilt idea. I’m going to do it — I’ve already talked to Jennifer about having quilts made for all three sisters. Just the idea of wrapping up in a quilt made of my mother’s clothes, or sleeping with that quilt across my feet is incredibly comforting to me. Thank you so very, very much.

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