With the funeral over, we stayed home a couple of more days and returned to school. Life was supposed to go back to normal. We were back in the groove of practices, homework, and chores, but there was little in my life that felt normal. Being in school did feel comforting and focusing on my school work was a good distraction from all that was going on in my head.
At the same time, it felt very far from normal. I felt like everyone now looked at me as the girl whose Mom died. I felt like they were all just looking for signs that I wasn't handling it well or waiting for me to have a break down. I felt like people were tip toeing around me not knowing how to act or what to say.
I felt like everyone else's lives did go back to normal. My friends had grieved with me and processed what had happened and were now moving forward. Their lives were back to normal. I thought most of our family probably did the same. I say this not referring to my siblings or dad, but our extended family. (This seems absurd to me now to think that anyone in my family just went back to normal after her death, but it's what I assumed at the time.) All these years later, I now know this wasn't true at all. In recent days since I have started this blog, I have had several family members reach out to me letting me know how much they were affected by my Mom's passing and how it took them years to come to terms with it. Amazing as it sounds, 20 years later and I'm just realizing I'm not the only one that took years to process this. Even today, I find great comfort in this.
I have a relatively big extended family and I would consider us close, especially 20 years ago. I saw my grandparents and a lots of my aunts, uncles, and cousins weekly growing up and we lived nearby each other. We have regularly shared stories about my Mom, talked about how much we miss her, but never did we talk about how her death made us feel, how we handled the days, weeks, months following her death, or how it stills affects us today. I will be honest I never discussed these things with my siblings or father either. Mom was spoken of often, our feelings however were not.
I never brought it up to anyone because I never wanted to make anyone sad. I never wanted to bring someone down if they were doing well with it. I never wanted to let anyone know how sad I was. Now that I have more insight into how much it affected my entire family, I wish I had brought it up. I wish we could have been shoulders for each other to cry on and helped each other through it instead of me feeling so alone. I have no doubt that any and all of my family members would have totally been there for me. As nice as it sounds to have been able to lean on each other. I also know that I just didn't have the courage to face the emotions that I was trying so hard to keep bottled up inside at that time. And years later when I was ready, I erroneously assumed they had all moved on.
Ironically, my mom had never discussed with me how her mother's death affected her or how she had handled it. I knew about my grandma and how she died, but have no recollection of Mom ever talking about her feelings related to her mom. Now was that because this conversation topic just never came up in my 17 years of life or was it something she didn't want to discuss? I will never know. I wish I had known how she felt. I think it may have helped me at the time. This is yet another reason why I'm writing this blog, so that if my two boys ever face this same or a similar struggle they might not feel so alone. They will not feel like everyone else's lives have just gone back to normal.
A historical record of my memories, thoughts, and feelings regarding my mother's sudden death in March 1995.
About the Blog
Many may wonder why after 20 years, I have chosen to share something so personal and that happened so long ago. I am sharing this because at the time I felt very alone and if these words would help someone else not feel so alone then that's worth my opening up about this time of my life. I also want to document these events and thoughts for my own two sons so that they have an account of why their Mom was so adamant that they always know how much I loved them. I also share this as a therapeutic release for myself on this twentieth anniversary.
This blog will not likely be an ongoing dialogue, but it may take me a year to share all that I experienced and how I processed the impact of this event for years to come. It still affects how I live my life today and will always shape the way I see the world.
I don't share these stories to ask for sympathy or for anyone to feel sorry for me. Sometimes life sucks and is hard and everyone experiences that in life. I don't feel my life has been any worse or any different that anyone else's. I do ask for prayers, not for myself specifically, but for all those dealing with the loss of loved ones. Pray that they may find the courage and strength to allow themselves to grieve for their loss and continue to live a life full of love and happiness as time passes by.
I was not a perfect daughter, sister, friend, or girlfriend at any point in my life much less during one of the most difficult times. I do not believe the way I grieved and reacted to these events is the right way. I do not believe there is a right or wrong way to grieve. This is the path I took and everyone must find their own path. I did what I thought at the time was best for me and it wasn't always what was best for those around me. That's what my siblings did too and eventually we all came out on the other side of the grief to live full and successful lives.
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