Not That Good Grief

November 2019

Yesterday morning, I should have been the recipient of the #1 Grump award. I was not lovely in any capacity. Within the first few minutes of waking, I snapped at my children to make their own breakfast and give me space. They made fried egg sandwiches with plenty of clanking, but thankfully, remained obedient.

My little desk, my seat of choice each morning, is directly behind our kitchen table. As my girls ate their sandwiches behind me yesterday, they were fairly quiet. Unusual for them. I suspect it was to protect their nervous hearts. As I checked Amazon, I heard my youngest pick up her cup and clearly, but quietly, say to her sister, “Can I have more Bailey’s, please?”

Grieving a mother while being a mother is like driving a long, daily commute with a spiderwebbed windshield for a job that, altogether, feeds your soul, gives you purpose, and makes you grind your teeth to tiny, nearly useless, nubs.

It is my job to support my children as they grieve and grow and it is also my job to support my father grieve and rest. I am the base and the fulcrum. In the middle. Wobbly. Trying my best to keep our beam balanced enough to not completely fall off. For years I’ve fussed at my children and husband when they suggest stupid things like for me to go ice skating, “If I go down, we all go down.” The base should be flat and firm.

In college, I was gifted a quirky mentor/friend that helped build my moral foundation. She was in no way like a mother, more like a wise, yet messy, cousin who’s a yoga instructor or something. It was exactly what I needed at that time in my life. Admittedly, I was sheltered, privileged, self righteous- she helped widen my lens and use skills I hadn’t previously recognized that I even owned. When I became a mom, years later, I experienced major postpartum depression and anxiety. When my friend checked in, I recall her saying, “When I went through the worst of my depression, the one thing that seemed to get me through was my cats. I had no choice but to feed and care for them. And it got my body out of bed. The cats saved me.”

I was zero percent offended that she compared my baby to her cats. I didn’t really want to feed and rock my baby at that time, but I also knew I was the only one to do it. And it did force my body to move, so not completely dissimilar. If a bus were ever to barrel toward her home, she would have thrown my body in front of it so quickly, in an attempt to save her cats, that I would have never even had time to hear the honking. Very devoted.

Eleven years later, it remains true that it is the cats and kids keeping me from staying in bed all day. When my second baby was born, my previously mentioned mentor/friend sent an adorable gift for my new “baby boy.” I birthed a girl. I remember it fondly because I let my older child open the package while I was eating Spaghetti-Os directly from the tin can. She didn’t quite hit the mark.

It seemed an ironic, yet suitable, representation of our friendship. When my family brought home 2 cats five years later, that friend me sent pages of instructions for cat care and name suggestions with the salutation stating, “I’m proud of you.” Spot on.

When my mother died, that friend was away. A month later, I saw her at her perfectly executed birthday party. (I’ve asked my husband to replicate the party for me someday. He didn’t respond.) I quietly nursed a drink and when she spotted me, she abandoned her conversation with some State Representative to beeline toward me. She spoke, “Kittycat, I’m sorry. And I’m sad.” Still very much a medicated shell at the time, I wasn’t feeling too much, in general. But I felt her words. They were so sincere.

Many, Many people loved my mother. She was incredibly easy to love. So, many, many people felt sad when she died. And many people felt sad for me. And a few people felt sad with me. I’m not posed to properly describe the differences. But it is true.

In the middle of Detroit, hours before my mother died, I called my husband at work, after I had a chance to see her with my own eyes and said, “She’s going to die today.” And he said, “ok, I am on my way.” I responded something like, “It is ok, you don’t have to come.” He must have nearly flown there because he was in front of me quickly.

I don’t know what I looked like that day. I know what my mom looked like. For about 8 hours, we took turns pacing the halls- my dad, my brother, my aunt, and me. When Kelly arrived, I do recall my brother looking at me oddly and then saying to my him, “Who is that person? I don’t recognize her.” My husband responded, “Oh, her? I’ve seen this version. That’s still her.”

My poses unrecognizable.

When I was in the throws of labor with my first baby, I had an out of body experience where I could see myself from a birds’ eye view. (maybe the drugs?) In that hallway in Detroit, it was flashes of the same. (probably the drugs)

The morning after the worst day of my life, I woke up and found my husband in the shower. I told him, “you can go to work. it is ok.” He just nodded, “ok, hunny. I don’t think so.” I crawled back into my bed and stayed a long while.

Reliably, he got out of bed that day, and many more days. Someone needed to feed the cats and kids.

Four days after my mom died, my daughter had her dance recital. We had to go, the baby had practiced all year. I cried in the dressing room. I had no snacks, no makeup, no friends. I did not know any of the other mothers, they had no clue why my poor child had a nervous smile and tearful eyes. It had nothing to do with the stage and everything to do with her uneven mother. I can’t pull any other memories from the day.

That stage of shock lasted a long time. It didn’t end with a halt, but a fade. And the result of the fade is not acceptance.

Last week, I fussed that my husband didn’t have more time off at the end of the year. Usually, he is able to take a few days off in December. I said, “well this sucks, where did all your hours go?” He didn’t respond.

When I woke around my usual 2-4am time the other night and did my “toss around and overthink” act, I remembered my husband coming home from work early many days in June when I was piecing together childcare while nearly living at the hospital. And I remembered him there that day in Detroit and that day after death. And I thought to myself, “You’re a real selfish turd.”

My husband is sad for me that my mother died. I asked him once, a week after she had left me, why he didn’t seem sad himself and he said, “yes, I am sad. But God made people to live and then die. People die.”

yikes.

He wasn’t trying to sound cruel. He was speaking what he believes is true. It reminded me of a book I have read my girls since babyhood called, “God is Like A Circle.” I adored the book. It felt simple and true. God is like a circle, no beginning and no end. Everything else is a line. starts, stops.

I no longer have a sense of what I believe to be true. My stance falters and my circle spins.

Being a mother while grieving a mother means your partner does eventually have to return to work and you must get up. You need to feed the cats and kids with your shaky hands and say things like, “I have no clue what you’re talking about,” with your nub teeth. When the children notice that you have had no pupils for weeks, you take note and begin to adjust the meds. They are always watching and also almost always hungry. They are looking for signs of life.

Yesterday afternoon, when I was a little less tired, I approached my youngest child and asked, “Were you drinking liquor at breakfast today?”

Apparently, she had mixed up the creamer verse the hard creamer. No harm, no foul.

This afternoon, my other child said, “Everything feels like it is shaking. The counters. The rooms.”

I said, “that’s your insides, not your outsides.” Unfortunately, these types of statements are not unusual for her…. residual harm and foul.

What happens if you do your downward dog and decide to never get back up?

What happens if the base of the scale is made of mud? It seems the fulcrum must be solid, or the entire operation goes down and it’s pieces become dysfunctional. How long can things stay unbalanced or cracked? Where is the maker of the machine to do the quality control checks? When does the shop keeper’s patience run out?

I just don’t know.

Pass the Baileys.