I believe I'm being haunted.
March 7th, 2014, at 10:23 AM; the phone rings. It's my youngest sister. I thought she was calling me back. I answer and hear her crying. "Sam?! Mom's dead." She's crying. My pulse quickens. "What? Danni, what?! What happened?" "Mom. Mom is dead." "No, stop. Danni stop. I'm not kidding stop. No! Stop." It's all I remember saying and thinking. Stop! I want you to stop. Stop lying. Stop kidding. Please. I'm shaking. Crying. Confused. Scared. She tells me that she has to go and call my older sister. I said no, I will. I need to. We hang up. Shaking. I dial my sister. Ringing. Ringing. She's at work. Please answer. Ringing. I'm shaking. Starting to panic. She answers. We have the same conversation I just had, this time I'm the messenger. The barer of bad news. "Mom's dead". The smallest sentence, the hardest sentence to utter; to understand. The weight of those two words hang in the air. Crushing me. My heart. My sisters. Our world.
After the initial shock, the questions start flooding in. How? Why? When? What happened?! She wasn't sick. She wasn't the healthiest person alive, but she wasn't sick. Maybe a cough. Asthma. Nothing terminal. How did this happen? Why is this happening? My first instinct is to call my mom. How bizarre...
The majority of my immediate family is in central Maine. Three hours away if I'm driving the speed limit. I need to get there. I need to leave. I need to call someone. I call my husband and tell him. He asked if I was kidding. Is that our natural response to sudden death? He's on his way. I'm pacing. Shaking. Crying. Not crying. Call my other sister in Maine. She's on the road to the house. She's crying. I'm trying to calm her down because I know she's driving. She has no answers. I tell her to call me when she gets there and knows more. I'm in a limbo waiting for more information from my sisters in Maine. As if information will change something.
I go and pack my bag. I'm moving slowly, as if in molasses. Like when you're in a dream, being chased by that bad guy and you can't move your legs. Packing. Trying to make sense of what I'm doing. What do you pack when your mom dies? Trying not to panic. Plans. Make plans. Be logical. Grab a tooth brush.
Driving to their house, in that small town is like torture. Why do they live up here? Why did they move so far away? On the way up, I pushed it all down. Deep down. Tried not to panic or cry. Just focus on driving. When I get there everyone looks like zombies. Red eyes, expressionless. No one screaming or crying like I braced myself for. They already took my mom out of the house. She's at the local funeral home. We have an appointment at 4. It's 3 now. My older sister arrives. We try to make heads or tails of this. Asking questions. Timelines. Was she sick? Was it a heart attack? What happened?
She died in her sleep. She stopped breathing. Her heart stopped. She didn't suffer. She didn't even cry. She was only 52.
We go to the funeral home. I'm oddly calm as we talk to the director. Nice enough guy. We discuss my mom's wishes. This was the easy part for me. Questions and answers. Detached. I'm answering like I'm going to be graded. I was even a little proud for knowing everything I knew. My sisters were all getting upset. I pass out tissues. I felt weird. I wasn't upset. Not then. I was just numb. It didn't feel real. We discuss what's going to happen, we sign the papers, we are told to leave and wait for a call before we can go back and see our mom.
When we go back an hour later or so, three out of four of us girls. We are told our mother is ready to be seen. We are warned. But this isn't like seeing someone at a wake. There's so pomp and circumstance. No make-up. No softening the blow of what we are about to see. No illusion of life. We walk in. That's not my mom. That's her body, but not her. She's gone. It's an empty shell. I fought with myself. I wanted to touch her. But I was frozen. I was fighting the urge to try and wake her up, shake her, but also wanting to brush her hair back and say it's okay. But that isn't her. My sisters are crying. I don't know how I feel. Sick. Sad. Confused.
We leave the room and I'm beginning to lose it. Unraveling. I'm the type of person that when I see someone screaming crying, I judge them. Roll my eyes. Jesus! Calm yourself, you look crazy! Part of me was aware I was doing it. I felt annoyed. But the other part couldn't stop. I lost control of myself. I felt myself breaking. Something in me crumbled. I think it was the child in me, holding onto some kind of hope that things would be different someday. Things would be better. My mom and I would someday have a great relationship, be best of friends. First my mom died, and then my hopes and dreams died too. I don't know which one is worse.
My mom died March 7th. But I felt as though I lost her sometime in January. I hadn't spoken to her in over a month. Or, she wouldn't speak to me. She wouldn't answer the phone. I tried. She had moments where she didn't feel like talking on the phone, or to me, not sure. She didn't want to get on the phone and fake being happy or attentive when I told her about my kids, my mundane crap. Especially when she really wanted me to be silent and listen to her complain. I should've been used to it. Going weeks without a phone call. That was our pattern over the last couple years. But that child in me never could adjust to reality. We used to be closer. Things changed over the years. I wish I knew why. I'm not going to sugar coat it, I have severe mommy issues. Some of it, typical mother/daughter stuff. Other things, I could never quite understand. For a long time I took her actions(or lack there of) personally. It's me, not her, has to be. Why didn't my mom love me? Or my kids? I'm a big believer in "actions speak louder than words", so when my mom would speak to everyone but me, it felt personal. When she wouldn't come to visit after promising, it felt personal. When she'd do or say things out of spite, it felt personal. I have to try hard and remember, she loved me, my kids, my husband. My sisters tell me, "She loved you! She just didn't love herself enough to know how to show me properly." I'm left with so many questions. Gaps. So many things left unanswered and unsaid. So many regrets. I was robbed. She was robbed! We had so many years of tomorrows left. I thought I had time to see my mom become the person she was always meant to be. I thought she had time to do it all. Get healthy and happy. Embrace life. Be my mom. Be my kids' Mémère.
So now I'm being haunted. By the ghosts of the past, present, and future. Memories. Her obituary; my mom is now just a paragraph. A picture. Ashes in a tiny urn on a shelf. I'm haunted by the dreaded three: should've, would've, could've. Regret is more irksome to me than the four horsemen of the apocalypse. I should've made her talk to me, I could've been a better daughter, I would've been so happy if she just answered the goddamn phone! She should've taken care of herself, she could've been happy, she would've be around to see so much! She's missing out on so much! Weddings and more babies. Jobs. Promotions. Graduations. Birthdays. Seeing my daughter go through her surgeries, helping me through it. Seeing her grand-kids grow up. Growing old with my dad; oh my poor dad. I will never see my mom grow old and gray. Get wrinkled. I will never hear her voice again. I will never hug her. I will never fight with her, laugh with her, cry with her. I will never be able to call her and ask for a recipe or tell her what my kids are doing. Sure, I wasn't doing that even before she died, but now all hope that I ever could do that is gone.
As I write this, it hasn't even been four weeks. I feel as though it's been both a lifetime and yet mere seconds since it happened. Some moments are a blur and others are crystal clear moments of hyper awareness. Everyday, every hour is different. Some moments I'm positive. Trying to let go on bad feelings and learn from this. The next moment I'm so angry. At this. At god. At her! Why did you leave me? Why did You do this? Why? Angry is my safe place. It's easier to feel angry than to feel hurt and sad. Then I'm nothing. Numb. Then it's disbelief. I have several moments everyday where it hits me again and again. I'm life's punching bag. I spend time trying to wrap my head around it all, all that has happened, all that won't. And then, in the darkest moments, I'm devastated. Broken. I breakdown. Crying like a small child, crying out. To the point where I lose all my breathe. Crying for my mother. Crying because she's gone. Crying for all that's ever happened. I need her now more than ever, ironic.
I have my own grief to contend with and my son's, he's only 5. He's sad now. Scared. He loves her. We saw her in early January. He's confused. Mémère wasn't old. She wasn't sick. Why did she go to Heaven. That alone both breaks my heart and makes me want to scream at my mother, look what you left us with! Can she hear me? Can she see this mess!? Is she sad? Is she sorry? Is she at peace? His birthday was mere days before this happened and I never even got to speak to her about it. Him turning 5. All he's doing now. What being a mom means to me.
At times I blame her for her death. She should have taken better care of herself. And then I blame God. And then at times I don't believe in God. Oh that's bleak. I've always believed in an afterlife. Heaven. God or something like it. Not so much the biblical stuff, but something. The alternative is awful. You die and it's nothingness?! When I got the call, it felt like the sky fell. Angels and God and any sense of peace I had with my dead loved ones, GONE! God died too. I feel empty. And yet full. All that the same time, but with the wrong things. Full of pain, empty of faith. It's everything and nothing all at once.
I loved my mom. I didn't always like her or her choices. But I love her. I wish I didn't. I wish I could be indifferent. But I do love her, so much. I don't even think she knew how much I loved her and needed her. I'm trying very hard to let go of all my silly hang ups. The issues I have with people. The fights I've had. The anger I've held on to. The grudges. I'm trying to let it all go. Everything seems silly now, in the wake of this. It's amazing to me that the world is still turning, everyone is still functioning while I'm going through hell. How is that possible? Don't you get it? My mom died! Stop being happy damnit! How don't you know this happened? But the flip side is, people who do know what happened, treat me like I'm either on the verge of falling apart or like I'm not even human and ask really bizarre and personal questions. 'How'd she die?" What difference does it make? She's dead, asshole. Is my mental response. Death makes people act strange. They get uncomfortable and act awkward, or morbidly curious and forget their manners. But I can't really be upset, no one knows what it's like until they're here. I don't want to waste anymore energy hating or having ill will toward anyone. It's exhausting. My body is so full with so many emotions, I can't fit anymore in. I'm trying to focus. Cut off people who are bad for me or work it out with people who are worth it. That part seems easy; dealing with those in front of you. Now that my mom is dead, I have to work out my depressing bullshit with a dial tone, an empty chair, a ghost. It's an awful feeling. Having to sort through all this alone. I never want to feel this again, but that's when the fear comes in. This will happen again. Death, loss; it's inevitable.
So here comes my advice for you, who ever is reading this: don't waste your life holding on to anger and sadness. Resolve it. Try to, at least. If you get rebuffed, at least you tried! Tell someone you love them. Hug them. You don't know how much they might need it. Smile at a stranger. Take a vacation. Don't let life pass you by. Go for that position at work you want. Run a marathon. Travel. Read a book. Grab your kids and tell them how much you love them. Tell your mom or your sister everything you've always wanted to say; the good and the bad. Call that old friend. Send a postcard. Get healthy. Get happy. Get going. Life is short. Scary short. Anything can happen. Don't waste a minute of it saying "tomorrow". Tomorrow doesn't really exist. It's an illusion. Do it now. Why? Because I don't want you, whoever you are, friend, family, or foe, to ever feel this. This pain. This ache inside of me. This unrelenting sorrow. A broken heart. It's horrendous. I never want anyone to feel like this. This is the stuff nightmares are really made of. This is what truly haunts the living. These feelings of loss and regret are the true ghosts. Clean the skeletons out of your closets. Face down your fears. Exorcise those demons. Get rid of the ghosts. Now. While you still can.
My mom can't do anything now. All I can hope, on my best days, is that she is indeed somewhere and at peace with all that ever happened or didn't happen in her life on earth. And if I'm really honest with myself, if I got to see her and talk to her one more time, I would tell her I love her, hug her, and say goodbye. Because in the end, that is what kills me, I never got to say goodbye. And I forgot my toothbrush.
March 7th, 2014, at 10:23 AM; the phone rings. It's my youngest sister. I thought she was calling me back. I answer and hear her crying. "Sam?! Mom's dead." She's crying. My pulse quickens. "What? Danni, what?! What happened?" "Mom. Mom is dead." "No, stop. Danni stop. I'm not kidding stop. No! Stop." It's all I remember saying and thinking. Stop! I want you to stop. Stop lying. Stop kidding. Please. I'm shaking. Crying. Confused. Scared. She tells me that she has to go and call my older sister. I said no, I will. I need to. We hang up. Shaking. I dial my sister. Ringing. Ringing. She's at work. Please answer. Ringing. I'm shaking. Starting to panic. She answers. We have the same conversation I just had, this time I'm the messenger. The barer of bad news. "Mom's dead". The smallest sentence, the hardest sentence to utter; to understand. The weight of those two words hang in the air. Crushing me. My heart. My sisters. Our world.
After the initial shock, the questions start flooding in. How? Why? When? What happened?! She wasn't sick. She wasn't the healthiest person alive, but she wasn't sick. Maybe a cough. Asthma. Nothing terminal. How did this happen? Why is this happening? My first instinct is to call my mom. How bizarre...
The majority of my immediate family is in central Maine. Three hours away if I'm driving the speed limit. I need to get there. I need to leave. I need to call someone. I call my husband and tell him. He asked if I was kidding. Is that our natural response to sudden death? He's on his way. I'm pacing. Shaking. Crying. Not crying. Call my other sister in Maine. She's on the road to the house. She's crying. I'm trying to calm her down because I know she's driving. She has no answers. I tell her to call me when she gets there and knows more. I'm in a limbo waiting for more information from my sisters in Maine. As if information will change something.
I go and pack my bag. I'm moving slowly, as if in molasses. Like when you're in a dream, being chased by that bad guy and you can't move your legs. Packing. Trying to make sense of what I'm doing. What do you pack when your mom dies? Trying not to panic. Plans. Make plans. Be logical. Grab a tooth brush.
Driving to their house, in that small town is like torture. Why do they live up here? Why did they move so far away? On the way up, I pushed it all down. Deep down. Tried not to panic or cry. Just focus on driving. When I get there everyone looks like zombies. Red eyes, expressionless. No one screaming or crying like I braced myself for. They already took my mom out of the house. She's at the local funeral home. We have an appointment at 4. It's 3 now. My older sister arrives. We try to make heads or tails of this. Asking questions. Timelines. Was she sick? Was it a heart attack? What happened?
She died in her sleep. She stopped breathing. Her heart stopped. She didn't suffer. She didn't even cry. She was only 52.
We go to the funeral home. I'm oddly calm as we talk to the director. Nice enough guy. We discuss my mom's wishes. This was the easy part for me. Questions and answers. Detached. I'm answering like I'm going to be graded. I was even a little proud for knowing everything I knew. My sisters were all getting upset. I pass out tissues. I felt weird. I wasn't upset. Not then. I was just numb. It didn't feel real. We discuss what's going to happen, we sign the papers, we are told to leave and wait for a call before we can go back and see our mom.
When we go back an hour later or so, three out of four of us girls. We are told our mother is ready to be seen. We are warned. But this isn't like seeing someone at a wake. There's so pomp and circumstance. No make-up. No softening the blow of what we are about to see. No illusion of life. We walk in. That's not my mom. That's her body, but not her. She's gone. It's an empty shell. I fought with myself. I wanted to touch her. But I was frozen. I was fighting the urge to try and wake her up, shake her, but also wanting to brush her hair back and say it's okay. But that isn't her. My sisters are crying. I don't know how I feel. Sick. Sad. Confused.
We leave the room and I'm beginning to lose it. Unraveling. I'm the type of person that when I see someone screaming crying, I judge them. Roll my eyes. Jesus! Calm yourself, you look crazy! Part of me was aware I was doing it. I felt annoyed. But the other part couldn't stop. I lost control of myself. I felt myself breaking. Something in me crumbled. I think it was the child in me, holding onto some kind of hope that things would be different someday. Things would be better. My mom and I would someday have a great relationship, be best of friends. First my mom died, and then my hopes and dreams died too. I don't know which one is worse.
My mom died March 7th. But I felt as though I lost her sometime in January. I hadn't spoken to her in over a month. Or, she wouldn't speak to me. She wouldn't answer the phone. I tried. She had moments where she didn't feel like talking on the phone, or to me, not sure. She didn't want to get on the phone and fake being happy or attentive when I told her about my kids, my mundane crap. Especially when she really wanted me to be silent and listen to her complain. I should've been used to it. Going weeks without a phone call. That was our pattern over the last couple years. But that child in me never could adjust to reality. We used to be closer. Things changed over the years. I wish I knew why. I'm not going to sugar coat it, I have severe mommy issues. Some of it, typical mother/daughter stuff. Other things, I could never quite understand. For a long time I took her actions(or lack there of) personally. It's me, not her, has to be. Why didn't my mom love me? Or my kids? I'm a big believer in "actions speak louder than words", so when my mom would speak to everyone but me, it felt personal. When she wouldn't come to visit after promising, it felt personal. When she'd do or say things out of spite, it felt personal. I have to try hard and remember, she loved me, my kids, my husband. My sisters tell me, "She loved you! She just didn't love herself enough to know how to show me properly." I'm left with so many questions. Gaps. So many things left unanswered and unsaid. So many regrets. I was robbed. She was robbed! We had so many years of tomorrows left. I thought I had time to see my mom become the person she was always meant to be. I thought she had time to do it all. Get healthy and happy. Embrace life. Be my mom. Be my kids' Mémère.
So now I'm being haunted. By the ghosts of the past, present, and future. Memories. Her obituary; my mom is now just a paragraph. A picture. Ashes in a tiny urn on a shelf. I'm haunted by the dreaded three: should've, would've, could've. Regret is more irksome to me than the four horsemen of the apocalypse. I should've made her talk to me, I could've been a better daughter, I would've been so happy if she just answered the goddamn phone! She should've taken care of herself, she could've been happy, she would've be around to see so much! She's missing out on so much! Weddings and more babies. Jobs. Promotions. Graduations. Birthdays. Seeing my daughter go through her surgeries, helping me through it. Seeing her grand-kids grow up. Growing old with my dad; oh my poor dad. I will never see my mom grow old and gray. Get wrinkled. I will never hear her voice again. I will never hug her. I will never fight with her, laugh with her, cry with her. I will never be able to call her and ask for a recipe or tell her what my kids are doing. Sure, I wasn't doing that even before she died, but now all hope that I ever could do that is gone.
As I write this, it hasn't even been four weeks. I feel as though it's been both a lifetime and yet mere seconds since it happened. Some moments are a blur and others are crystal clear moments of hyper awareness. Everyday, every hour is different. Some moments I'm positive. Trying to let go on bad feelings and learn from this. The next moment I'm so angry. At this. At god. At her! Why did you leave me? Why did You do this? Why? Angry is my safe place. It's easier to feel angry than to feel hurt and sad. Then I'm nothing. Numb. Then it's disbelief. I have several moments everyday where it hits me again and again. I'm life's punching bag. I spend time trying to wrap my head around it all, all that has happened, all that won't. And then, in the darkest moments, I'm devastated. Broken. I breakdown. Crying like a small child, crying out. To the point where I lose all my breathe. Crying for my mother. Crying because she's gone. Crying for all that's ever happened. I need her now more than ever, ironic.
I have my own grief to contend with and my son's, he's only 5. He's sad now. Scared. He loves her. We saw her in early January. He's confused. Mémère wasn't old. She wasn't sick. Why did she go to Heaven. That alone both breaks my heart and makes me want to scream at my mother, look what you left us with! Can she hear me? Can she see this mess!? Is she sad? Is she sorry? Is she at peace? His birthday was mere days before this happened and I never even got to speak to her about it. Him turning 5. All he's doing now. What being a mom means to me.
At times I blame her for her death. She should have taken better care of herself. And then I blame God. And then at times I don't believe in God. Oh that's bleak. I've always believed in an afterlife. Heaven. God or something like it. Not so much the biblical stuff, but something. The alternative is awful. You die and it's nothingness?! When I got the call, it felt like the sky fell. Angels and God and any sense of peace I had with my dead loved ones, GONE! God died too. I feel empty. And yet full. All that the same time, but with the wrong things. Full of pain, empty of faith. It's everything and nothing all at once.
I loved my mom. I didn't always like her or her choices. But I love her. I wish I didn't. I wish I could be indifferent. But I do love her, so much. I don't even think she knew how much I loved her and needed her. I'm trying very hard to let go of all my silly hang ups. The issues I have with people. The fights I've had. The anger I've held on to. The grudges. I'm trying to let it all go. Everything seems silly now, in the wake of this. It's amazing to me that the world is still turning, everyone is still functioning while I'm going through hell. How is that possible? Don't you get it? My mom died! Stop being happy damnit! How don't you know this happened? But the flip side is, people who do know what happened, treat me like I'm either on the verge of falling apart or like I'm not even human and ask really bizarre and personal questions. 'How'd she die?" What difference does it make? She's dead, asshole. Is my mental response. Death makes people act strange. They get uncomfortable and act awkward, or morbidly curious and forget their manners. But I can't really be upset, no one knows what it's like until they're here. I don't want to waste anymore energy hating or having ill will toward anyone. It's exhausting. My body is so full with so many emotions, I can't fit anymore in. I'm trying to focus. Cut off people who are bad for me or work it out with people who are worth it. That part seems easy; dealing with those in front of you. Now that my mom is dead, I have to work out my depressing bullshit with a dial tone, an empty chair, a ghost. It's an awful feeling. Having to sort through all this alone. I never want to feel this again, but that's when the fear comes in. This will happen again. Death, loss; it's inevitable.
So here comes my advice for you, who ever is reading this: don't waste your life holding on to anger and sadness. Resolve it. Try to, at least. If you get rebuffed, at least you tried! Tell someone you love them. Hug them. You don't know how much they might need it. Smile at a stranger. Take a vacation. Don't let life pass you by. Go for that position at work you want. Run a marathon. Travel. Read a book. Grab your kids and tell them how much you love them. Tell your mom or your sister everything you've always wanted to say; the good and the bad. Call that old friend. Send a postcard. Get healthy. Get happy. Get going. Life is short. Scary short. Anything can happen. Don't waste a minute of it saying "tomorrow". Tomorrow doesn't really exist. It's an illusion. Do it now. Why? Because I don't want you, whoever you are, friend, family, or foe, to ever feel this. This pain. This ache inside of me. This unrelenting sorrow. A broken heart. It's horrendous. I never want anyone to feel like this. This is the stuff nightmares are really made of. This is what truly haunts the living. These feelings of loss and regret are the true ghosts. Clean the skeletons out of your closets. Face down your fears. Exorcise those demons. Get rid of the ghosts. Now. While you still can.
My mom can't do anything now. All I can hope, on my best days, is that she is indeed somewhere and at peace with all that ever happened or didn't happen in her life on earth. And if I'm really honest with myself, if I got to see her and talk to her one more time, I would tell her I love her, hug her, and say goodbye. Because in the end, that is what kills me, I never got to say goodbye. And I forgot my toothbrush.
