I'm glad this thread is resonating and I appreciate the candor of the responses. If talking about this helps even one person, it's a good thing.
I think it's true, Hominid, what you said about the importance of not letting grief define us. I think, too, that when one has carried something for a very long time, when it has become a touchstone, the letting go of it can be incredibly difficult. Even a thing that seems a negative, when it's been with us for so long, its departure, its absence creates a void that then needs to be filled with something else. Finding that something else can be hard. That whole "evil we know" thing, there's something to be said for it.
Virago, I found what you said about the timeline quite interesting. My initial thought upon doing the math was, "Oh, damn, my mother was in my life for 48 years. This thing is going to be with me a l o n g time." That formula is akin to something I once heard about how long it takes to get over a breakup. I don't remember exactly what it was, but I'm guessing there is actually something scientific to it.
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Originally Posted by Virago
We go on living happily as an honor to the people who helped shape us into who we are today....not in spite of them passing.
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Yes. This. Thank you for saying that. I sometimes lose sight of it.
You make a valid point, Ms T, when you talk about grief being as different as the people for whom we mourn. Them, the people we are when we lost them, I'm sure so many variables impact the experience.
My brother was only able to be in town for the last couple of days of my mom's life and before that it had been probably 2-3 years since he'd seen her because of work stuff. For the week and a half prior, I'd been practically living at the hospital and I finally hit a wall. Because he was there, I felt it was okay to leave for a while, separate, rest a bit. I'd been home less than 2 hours when Sean called me to say that I should come back because a nurse had said it wouldn't be long. The drive to the hospital should have taken about 10 minutes, but I got stuck behind a school bus. I'm sitting in my car, completely unable to do anything about the traffic situation when my phone rings again and I answer to hear my brother sobbing, "I begged her to wait". A fucking school bus. I've thought about it so often, talked about it with friends, and the reality is that I think her passing went exactly the way it was supposed to. My brother, who hadn't been with her for a long time, got to be be there. I live here, got to spend a lot of time with her over the last years, spent a lot of time with her during her last days...I think she chose to go when I wasn't there because I didn't need it the way my brother did. The thing about the school bus; my mother was a life long educator. Teaching first grade, particularly turning kids onto reading, was her passion. It makes sense that being behind that damn bus is the thing that kept me from being there when the moment actually came.