Dear Brayden:
Thank you so much for your sweet and sensitive message. I needed to hear it and I thank you. It's crazy because I was watching tv and then my mind began to wander as it has been all week to thoughts of my Mom. I then got up suddenly and came to the computer to see your message waiting for me. I know it will sound totally incredulous, but I believe that your message is a message from my Mom. Somehow magically, she found a way to use you as the vessel to console me.
I had literally just been thinking about her and how we used to talk into the wee hours - we were both night owls - and we'd talk about everything - life and death and just about anything with an element of spirituality or mystery in it. Small talk was not her way or mine. The depth of our conversations then, and now in memory, meant so much to me! She was absolutely filled with faith and I was always searching for it. I miss her so much and as I write to you I somehow feel her with me tonight, Brayden. I miss her arms around me. I miss the sound of her voice, her breathing. I miss how closely we related to one another! You are so right, I know how blessed I was to have my mother, her love!
I was thinking too how when I was young and inexperienced about loss, how I thought people seemed to conveniently only remember their loved ones after death with glowing memories. After the person died suddenly the lost loved one was a saint in memory. The loved one’s human frailties that afflict us all after death were automatically it seemed erased by grief, and that I could not understand. My Mom used to think that wasn't right either, but now I know differently.
I did not know for a long time how final death is and how painful it is to think of any sad memory of my Mom. After death, the only light bearable to shine upon her is a light of flawless revelation as the reality, in memory, of even the most innocent of differences between us, feels torturous. I remember the way my Mom used to try my patience and I hers. I remember how we laughed over the silliest things and how she thought I was the cat's meow and everything I said could make her smile, and we made each other laugh so hard and so often we would be reduced to tears, the happy kind. I remember too how angry she would become, how distant and unfamiliar to me, when she was mentally unwell and how I sometimes wished I just didn't have to face her in that frightening state for one more minute. I remember how she felt great pride in me and while I always expressed my love for her, I truly did not know until she died how very much indeed I adored her and needed her. I still do.
My Mom’s death has taught me to be kinder, more patient, more fully present in my life and with all those I love. Tenderness, sensitivity and expressiveness are among some of the qualities my Mom inherently possessed and I like to think I am like her, and that in both intangible and concrete ways through these traits that I share with her, she lives on. My heart is overflowing with love and memories of my Mom tonight. I feel the aching complexity of grief and have tried to keep moving with it, adapting to it daily as it has changed over these past two years. My Mom is the first person I have been parted from that has affected me this deeply. While my experience of grief is an evolution of emotion and I wish all my memories were simple, peaceful and beautiful, I cannot be false. Some of my memories are utterly heartbreaking, but coexisting in my heart’s recollections are the memories that evoke the exquisitely delicate essence of my mother, the woman I love most in the universe! I am a lucky person to have had an authentic, deep and loving mother who was flawed like me!
Okay so now I see as I write (you know I’m unfortunately long-winded) that Tian and NatR have left messages for me, and I just received the most touching private message from our guiding light, Colleen, so now I am crying so hard I cannot see to write more! Thank you my Virtual Hospice companions, my kindred spirits and my Angels of mercy! You will never truly know how much your support, your friendship and your depth of heart and soul matters to me. I began sharing here on this site almost a year ago and I was seriously hurting then and while I may seem like a complete mess tonight – admittedly I am – you all and so many others so often lift me up out of the darkness as you shine in my direction the light of hope and peace! My love and gratitude for you all is endless . . .
With endless affection –hugs- -xo-
Cath1