On the difficulty of writing on a recent loss

Writing about my mother has been hard.  In fact, I’ve covered every member of the family known to have myotonic dystrophy except her.  I’ve spent about a month not writing about her after writing a great deal in a short time about my brother and myotonic dystrophy.  I’m not sure what has made writing about my mother so hard. Maybe I figure I don’t have the time to cry, or maybe I just don’t want to write the most important story of my life in 20 minute increments after Eli goes to bed.

My mother’s last month in the hospital (or was it two?) was probably the most turbulent and transformational time of my life.  My first child was three months old when my mother was on her deathbed.  I was nursing my son when the life support was stopped on my mother.  Life and death danced together that month in the way that preteen boys dance with preteen girls, an awkward slowness with a promise of better days to come.  

Tonight I’ve written two paragraphs in 10 minutes.  I don’t know what I felt in that hospital. I don’t remember how long my mother was in the hospital.  None of it looking back makes sense, the timeline isn’t clear, I’m not sure if I’m angry, or sad, or purposefully numb.  I don’t want to look at the medical records, I’m not sure how to obtain them.  We've talked a few times; however, my father doesn’t really like to talk about it often. I don't either.

I was angry at the doctors at times, angry at myself for not noticing, angry at God.  I was thankful for the visitors, thankful for still having my mother, even if she couldn’t talk to me, thankful for the life God gave me.  I was confused about what was happening, strangely fatalistic, blindly hopeful, and yet peacefully resigned.  I wanted more time, I wanted it to end faster, I wanted to change the past, I wanted a different future.  I wanted my mother to hold me, talk to me, teach me how to raise a child, listen to me cry about the loss of sleep an infant brings, come live with me for the first six months of when I returned to work and watch Eli. 
 
My life changed when my mother went into the hospital.  The night I got the phone call my mother-in-law was at our house having a serious family talk with my husband.  I took the phone call from my father on the back porch.  He said he had taken mom to the ER, but it didn’t seem like anything serious.  I tried to wait until Daniel and my mother-in-law were done talking to drop my family’s trouble in the middle of their conversation.  I should have went then.  I should have told Daniel immediately and taken off for Great Bend. Then maybe I could have talked to my mother when she was in the hospital.  I went that night, but already she couldn’t speak. 

I’m not sure why she couldn’t speak.  I don’t remember if she were too drugged, sleeping, or if the tracheotomy tube were already down her neck.  I’m pretty sure it was the tube was already down her neck; I remember she couldn’t get the surgery to put the tubing
on the outside of her neck for a while because it was a small town and the doctor who would perform the surgery kept having to leave town or do other things.

I’m happy and I have regrets, I’m at peace and I’m unresolved. How does a daughter make sense of the death of her mother?  How do the living grapple with the nature of death?  Do we have good answers?  Will I be able to write about my mother later?  Will I understand God’s plan in my mother’s final months?  Will I one day have a good answer for myself about why I was born without the genetic strain that took my mother and brother?  Do I have to understand the morality, rationality, or even remember the details of the situation to write about it?

                I miss my mother.  I loved her.  I am formed and built by her love.  She was an amazing woman, and I carry her spirit in my heart.  The painting of mother and child that she kept in my nursery is on the wall in Eli’s nursery.  I don’t know what to think, I don’t know what to write, I’m not really sure what I learned, I can’t really tell you how I felt. 

                My favorite answer to life’s questions lately? “That’s life”.  Sometimes the complexity of life doesn’t have much room for questions, and sometimes living trumps understanding.  I’m not going to wait on living until I have understanding, not going to stop feeling because I’m not sure what I felt.  I want to write about my mother.  I want to understand myself and my life enough to write about it.  I don’t yet. I’m living, I’m praying, I’m thinking, and I’m trying.  I just don’t have great answers yet.  That’s life.

                So for now, I’m content trying to write about why I really can’t write about the loss of my mother.  Here’s to time, prayer, and reflection…

((originally posted April 4, 2013 at 10:07pm on facebook notes))

 

Mom helping me paint in 2007