Nine years of living two miles from you . God I will miss you mom.

I’m in a cot cozied up beside you while you sleep. You know I’m here .You know me, your daughter. You know and have known just as I have always known we were never alone. I cried out for you over the 61 years – from infant to grown woman I cried for my my mama and you always picked me up and held me…as a baby , an adult waiting for me at baggage claim when I need home ,needed you. Hustling  out into the bleak Boston winter cold, dark and unrelenting. Safe in your warm Camry heat blasting , ice  pelting the windshield ,we made our way down route 3 to sandwich, mass. I wanted to stay in that car w you and the protective balm you created but you always made me get out …of the car, bed , college … out the door into the world. I didn’t want to . Leave you. Now you are leaving me. 91 years here – Jesus you killed it mom. What a  glorious human – loved and admired by so many. 61 years I loved you. My plus one , my best friend, symbiotic in our relationship and that force will continue here w me in me as you transition into the next realm . With jeff, Jimmy, dad, Flo (oh the laughs you and will Flo will have ) and I’ll be sad and pissed you’re not here. I’ll drive to Bayleigh Chase, park,  and I’ll head in, say hi to Jane at reception and make my way to your room. You won’t be there. Someone else’s mom or dad will be in your room.I will find you when I look up – a hole in the sky big fat fluffy clouds and a hole where you come in and out for visits.

Grief… in death, in the change related to mental illness – the evaporation of the “before” person; grief in letting go of our former selves, the anguish in saying goodbye to a beloved pet, closing out a life chapter, listening so hard for one more exhalation of breath from the dying, roaming about this temporal world looking for signs from those who have moved into the spiritual realm. Life is a series of moments and stories filled with sadness, change, joy, and bursting with uncertainty. Like the tide, we go with the flow. We try anyway, to go with and not against. That’s living. With it all and finding the beauty through it and in it.