Hugging my mom goodbye again and again. As if I can squeeze those last drops of life clinging like a hangnail to her existence. As if I can release her, help her on her way. Is she already gone? It feels that way but I can’t deny that it also feels like she knows I’m hugging her and she craves that connection. I too have some strange sense that it is medicine for me. As if once she is gone, these lonely, awkward hugs at the end of our short visits will be the vibrant memory I hold. It is one small action to lighten the experience.
I like to think I have a long game but really it is just an excuse to ignore the present. Just like washing the dishes or clearing out leftovers or finishing a good glass of wine, I imagine being at the end of the moment, lamenting it’s over but thoroughly happy and content in its finality.
I wish I was not so pedantic about her death. I use that approach as a tool to separate from the cacophony of feelings surrounding her demise and my response over these past three years. It is as if I’m trying to win some prize for being present and available to the situation. I have done nothing with the soil I have created from the compost I’ve been collecting over the years. I ache for it to be happy and upbeat, but the story brings mostly disappointment and despair. Of course there are sprinkled moments of humor and moments that are in direct juxtapositon to the woman she was for 80 years.
The complete loss of hope would seem obvious in the face of death, but death seems like such an adventure to me. Perhaps it’s because I feel so far away from it. Perhaps because it is easy to encourage someone else to walk through that door and smile and wave as they head on their way. It is a scary endeavor to face your own death, and my mother has been fearful her entire life. I have much to gain from this lesson because I have been nothing but fearful too: taking the safe path, the one marked with signs, and pointing to pitfalls I must avoid.
Yet here I am, this quiet Sunday morning, sitting in the same chair I’ve been in for years, starting my day with a journal, a pen, a cup of coffee, and the strange desire that this casual discipline I’ve been drawn to over all these years is meaningful and true. That all this time will culminate into some thing I can work with and give the world. One day perhaps, I can present it as a gift, an observation, a truth born in the spirit of connection and understanding of this wonderful world: so heartbreakingly beautiful, so abundantly lonely.
P.S. I found this on Instagram after I posted this piece. I am in love with these poetry prompts and the beautiful sentiments people craft from them.