Thirteen years ago today I lost my best friend, my source of support as a diabetic and as a soon to be teenage girl, my mother. For a long time it was never grief I lived with, but guilt. Why wasn't I there? Why didn't I go see her more in the hospital? The simple answer? There are several. It was a routine surgery. It was summer vacation. I didn't want to make my dad uncomfortable by making him visit his ex-wife in the hospital. The more complex? I could never imagine a world without her in it. It was unfathomable to me that she would ever be taken away from me, that my mother was not invincible. Sure, she was sick quite often, but we always got through it together. How could a Lord and Lady, a God, Fate ever conceive of a universe where my twelve year old self did not have her mother? Somewhere inside I think I also knew, and feared, that this was not the case. Something inside me knew that soon I would be very alone. Still, for a long time I felt I should have said more, done more, been more before she died so that she would know how important she was to me. I built a strong, almost tangible edifice around myself that day. I was determined not to show my weakness. I helped plan a funeral. I comforted my grandmother. I read. I wrote. I meditated and I cried on my own time. I continued my life. The thing no one tells you about building walls is that you never get rid of what is held inside them. The sadness, the guilt, the regret...it's all trapped inside until one day you realize you're nothing but a ghetto of derelict emotions. Unfortunately when this realization came about I was unable to formulate a plan that didn't involve demolishing the whole project and starting from scratch. So, that's what I did. I tore away the rotten panels of my walls and unleashed a world of puling, putrid mental and emotional pestilence.

I can't say, honestly, that it ever gets easier. I can say, however, that with time people have come into my life that make it more tolerable. This year, number thirteen, has been a hard one in many ways. Our household has dealt with a lot of personal crises, but also a lot of personal growth. We've lost, we've gained, and we've fortified in a much healthier way that I knew how to in 1996. I've rediscovered a support system I've had for years, and I've added to it with new links and bonds that I hope never weaken. I've had my rough spots, sure. Maybe it comes with the territory as a motherless daughter planning her wedding, or maybe it comes from feeling so far away from the life I left behind when I moved to Philadelphia, but I have felt the void a lot more intricately and intimately than ever before. I can not imagine getting through it without Ryan and our close-knit family of friends. Their value is incalculable to me...and it is because of them that I can honestly say today will be a better day.

I'm sorry.
» lyndeep on 2010-04-21 10:40:04

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