Eternal Mothering.

I listen to the world much more deeply now. I listen for her and I feel the calm and the peace and the love and the perfect chaos and perhaps that is not all her but she still helps me see it. I thank her for that. I listen to myself much more deeply now. I listen for her and I find myself, truths of who I am that I can now see and love and fight for. I thank her for that. 

Thank you, mom. I love you eternally. 

Be Back Later

I don't feel as though I can be poetic yet, or elegant. But I don't think I will be writing about much else for awhile so one day it may come--a reflection. Now though, I just want to record what THIS is.

I still don't think it has fully hit me yet, which is terrifying. I am waiting for the moment when it hits me full on that she is gone and I can't breathe and I can't function, because I know it will come but the mystery is when... it keeps me on my toes.

Waking up this morning, on the couch since I couldn't sleep in her room, I felt like lead and I couldn't focus on anything, I wasn't thinking about anything, but I couldn't move.

After a couple hours I made it to the breakfast table where Alison told me that I had marks on my face where my tears had fallen and I couldn't wipe them away. I managed to eat a small pancake and then slowly exited from the haze until I was able to take a shower and exist as normal.

I felt weird about this, how normal I felt, how people around me were crying and I wondered if somehow I had done enough of my grieving beforehand to move forward somewhat seamlessly.

Another hour passed and I felt a little sad, the kind of sad I feel on really bad days, the sad I am used to. But it moved down my throat and seeped throughout my body, a heaviness (like lead again) pushing through my veins. My vision began to blur and I lost most of the awareness of my surroundings. My chest tightened and a mild nausea set in. My eyes well and tears fell from my eyes... not crying, exactly, but just nearly constant tears.

I didn't quite understand when people told me grief came in waves, like nausea. It is all too clear, now.

I will not return to Hendrix this semester, I will simply try to return to any basic form of life and go from there–grow into it again. I know I will be different though, it will all be different.

For now the difference just makes me feel sick.

Fuck.

That word, words, all words, no words can even come close to the description of what is inside of me and around me. Words are in a different realm-an earthly one. I feel a spiritual pain that runs deeper than the means by which this world has created to explain or communicate. Perhaps that is why I feel so lost and alone, even while I am surrounded.

But I will try.

I hear: gurgled raspy gasping breaths
I feel: the blanket that lays on atop my mother's withered legs
I smell: stale air sprayed over with happy scents–flowers, lavender, clary sage
I taste: salt tears
I see: my mother, eyes half open, unresponsive, seemingly gasping for every breath and every so often vomit-type substance falling from her mouth.
I see: my mother dying.
When I am asleep, when I am awake.

Nothing could prepare me for such an experience.

Life ain't fuckin' easy.