Some Anniversaries Are Hard

It’s been a year since Mom died, a year filled with first withouts. First birthdays without Mom, including hers. First Christmas without Mom. First anniversary without Mom. Everything that she’d normally have been involved in, every family chat or gathering, every visit, every phone call, she wasn’t there, and we felt her absence keenly. Milestones that should have been celebrations simply weren’t.

Common wisdom suggests that it takes at least a year to properly grieve, or even start to, as you pass through all the seasons and normal annual events without the person you’re grieving, the various holidays or events you would normally spend together. The first withouts.

It’s a year today, and I don’t know that I’ve properly started to grieve yet. I’m not sure I know how to. In the beginning, it was because I had to hold myself together because so many other family members weren’t. I kept a strong face where other people could see and in private organized photos along with my thoughts. No one got to see how I was feeling. One of my children has suggested that I wouldn’t truly start to grieve until all three of the animals we took in had passed on as well since we still hae firm living connections to Mom in the house with us. (Dad had major health issues within about two months of Mom’s death, and we took in two senior cats and a very overweight dog.)

I think the open display of emotional strength has become a habit at this point. It’s my job to be strong. My grief is not anyone else’s concern, so I haven’t let anyone else see it. I think about Mom all the time, and that’s not surprising. Mom herself told me more than once that she thought about both of her parents every day. Nanny left us in 2005, and Grandpa died in 1978 when I was only seven years old. Mom isn’t likely to ever be far from my thoughts.

I’m also very good at compartmentalizing my emotions. I can focus on the task at hand tightly enough to exclude everything but the moment. That can never last long, of course, not when it’s something intense I’m dealing with, but it helps me manage. Or maybe it helps me drag me things out over a longer period of time. You could argue either.

She held me when I took my first breath. I held her hand as she took her last. It’s a very strange set of book ends to consider. Like so many other expressions of loss or loss yet to come, it’s a reminder that tomorrow isn’t guaranteed for any of us.

Be well, everyone.

And let the ones you care about know.