At first, my stomach was a mess, my head ached constantly, and there were moments where I felt I could not breathe. I cried at the funeral. Then, after about three weeks, I was able to retain a little nutrition from my food...my hair stopped falling out, my skin stopped flaking, and I stopped losing my equilibrium. Last Sunday was one month since the day my mother died. One month...is that all it's been? The void seems to swallow more than just one month. Last Thursday, it hit me...really hit me...that she's gone. Seems silly, I know. Those early weeks were textbook examples of an anxiety-ridden human being.

You're small and in a pond, a still pond. You are buoyant and the water is peace. A passerby skips a stone and it passes just before you. You are pulled under by the current...remember, you're small. We're all small. You cannot possibly conceive how much that one skip affects the still, you can only survive the moment.

Much the same, it is not until this time has passed, the memories of my mother's last days of suffering fading, that I feel the absence in my life. I thought I felt it before, but it was nothing compared to this. I felt too much relief that her struggle had ended, then. I remember her as she was now, her contagious smile and her laughter...her melting eyes and her soft skin. I remember her lovely voice and her comforting hugs...I remember all of the things that made her precious to me, all of the things that I'll never have from anybody else, and I know now that my heart is still torn in two, and will never reseal perfectly again.




Thursday, at work, I had a productive morning. I took my lunch break and the dam crumbled. Seriously, just like that. No warning, nothing. I spent lunch crying in the bathroom and cursing my inability to get this under control. I brushed my teeth and chewed some gum and sucked it up to return to work for the afternoon. "Phew, glad that's over," I remarked to myself as I pulled from the parking lot at the end of the day. How naive, really, that I thought this a fleeting episode...oh it makes me blush.

I was fine Thursday night. I was fine working out Friday morning. I was fine opening my next account and beginning work...and then it hit again, that flooding emotion that I do not know how to swim against. I took deep breaths, I went to ask my boss if I could leave at noon, just in case I couldn't pull it together. I got to her office, started talking, and the tears had me stuttering before too long. "Just go now," she said soothingly around a hug. "I'll go over to your desk and wrap up your file, back up your computer. Just go."

I entered my empty house and let the tears fall. I stopped trying to breathe through the sobs and let them roll. I cried to nobody and everybody, I cried as though I was being fed to wolves inch by inch. I howled. I actually howled. The pain was indescribable...I took a half-dose of Tylenol PM—you know, the hard stuff—and let sleep take hold. I couldn't stand being awake.

Why now? Why after all these days of cool? Because, I'm missing her. Because I'm missing the woman she was in health. Because I'm forgetting the horrors of how she suffered there at the end. I'm missing the woman separated from the disease. I'm missing the one person who always understood me, and I'm missing the one person who always stuck up for me...whether or not I deserved it.

I asked her during her last weeks of lucidity about my relationship with Nick. She was so much more than a parent to me, you must understand. We counseled one another through life. We learned our alliance early, when my poor brother's young behavioral problems had me accepting death threats and violence as the norm. "Should I be starting a new relationship during such a time?" I questioned.

"Yes," she answered affirmatively. "I think you are going to need Nick very seriously very soon. Life is made to be lived." I felt like I was walking into the wind. Nevertheless, I followed my intuition and her advice...and I came to need Nick very seriously very soon after that. I needed him again on Friday. He took a half-day of vacation to help me work through my angst.

I remember so many little details now that I made myself forget almost instantly. I remember my mother grabbing my cheek and telling me that I was the love of her life. I remember her telling me to take care of her family because she trusted my strength above anybody's. I remember her telling me to keep living like nobody is watching and loving like I'll never get hurt. I remember her telling me that she admired me...and I remember her telling me that she'll never leave my side. They were hiccups in the days of her thrashing and mumbling...moments when she'd grow still and search your eyes in a way that you knew she knew where she was, to whom she spoke, knew what she had to say. The day before she went into a coma, she whispered to me, "Nick just might be worthy." Pretty impressive considering she barely knew him and kept thinking his name was Nate. The supernatural side of the dying is staggering.

She followed my voice, you know. She'd twist her body, half-conscious and pained as she was, straining closer to it. There were times Charlie was trying to administer pain medication, and the writhing was making things nearly impossible. I'd speak to her, and she'd turn toward me so that he could access her port. I'd hum to her, and she'd smile. I was writing her memoirs for her before she died. She was adamant that we do it. We didn't finish. Tentatively titled, "We Look for the Good," I think they'll be my personal record of her. Maybe this is why writing has been so difficult for me. My thoughts feel so scattered...my emotions too clashing. Bear with me...I will survive this. I think it's fitting that we didn't finish...there isn't an end to her story...she lives on.