A time to move on?

The most significant and defining event in my life was, is and will most probably be the death of my mother. I use writing as a way of expressing myself and somehow I have never really written about her life or death. It was never a conscious decision, but now I am consciously making a decision to write about her.

When people ask me how I felt about her death and how I feel not having her around now; my answer is much like anyone who has experienced a death of someone close to them. It was devastating and unbearably hard, I miss her but of course life goes on. That’s not a lie; those statements do have some truth to them. But it’s not the whole truth; I couldn’t tell you what the whole truth is because I still don’t know what that is.

Death is the one thing we all have in common, no matter what race, region, nationality or whatever else separates people, we are all going to die. You would think that that would make death something we should be able to understand and yet death seems like the most unnatural thing.

 I can’t say how I feel, if I can’t fully wrap my head around what happened. Not that I don’t understand that she’s gone and never coming back, I do. I don’t even know what I don’t understand. It’s difficult to explain which makes it difficult for me to talk about, to write about. If death was a novel, I would still be stuck on the first word of the first line. Five years later and I haven’t made it past the first damn word.

Not that I haven’t moved on, my life is not frozen on the 26^th of April 2007. I am capable of loving and being loved. I don’t run from relationships. I am not afraid of life because death is a part of it. I just am not able to tell you how it felt or how it feels. I know how it should feel and I acknowledge that I was sad and angry and just broken really but that’s not it entirely.

It’s somewhat comforting that I’m so puzzled by death. If I’m always confused by it, she’ll never be lost. I’ll be reminded of her whenever I try to figure it out. Not in a bad way or a sad way just the remembering kind of way. I’ve gotten to a point where I can remember her and not feel sad, where I can go a whole day and not think about her and not feel guilty about that.

Death has taught me that even though she is gone, I had her. For 17 years of my life I had an amazing mother who wanted me from the day I was born and loved me till the day she died. I had lost so much when she died because in her life she gave me so much.

I LOVE YOU MOMMY! And you’ll be my mommy till the day that I die.