In The Sky p.II

How do I write about my Mother's death? How? How do I say in here what it feels like? I can't. I don't know what it feels like. I'm the person drowning in relief, relief that she isn't lying there any longer. For the sake of the people I love and for people uncomfortable with cancer, I've been processing a lot in my head and in my paper journal. Now, I need to process here a bit. Typing is so much faster, more efficient. And we all know I'm about efficiency.

It happened on Sunday, Easter. After staying at my Mom's bedside the night before until the wee hours of the morning, I went home to hide eggs and set up Easter baskets and to sleep for almost two hours. After Easter was done, I went back to my Mom's and took up my spot again. Next to the bed, holding her hand, touching her hair, watching her chest rise and fall. I have no guilt in saying this. Every time it rose, I prayed harder that it wouldn't rise again. Labored breathing isn't easy to watch. It isn't easy to think of my Mama, lying there, hurting.

I am overwhelmed with all of the people that love her. Loved her. When do I start using the past tense? I didn't use to love my Mom, I do love my Mom, very much. And the thought of her someplace better, someplace higher, is a thought that comforts me. I don't even know my exact beliefs in regards to all this. I know they're not traditional, that they aren't beliefs that most would recognize or understand. I do know that at least she's not here hurting. Now, I'm here hurting.

Today I am going to my Grandma's house to say hi and to visit for awhile, and then touring an elementary school where Emily may go to kindergarten, and then doing p90x yoga with Natalie on Skype and then doing homework. I know that it's 10:04am and I need to get moving, but that the thought of moving is disgustingly overwhelming. The last few days have been days of moving forward, stubbornly pushing through anything that comes from inside and threatens to shove out of my eyes. Because I can't process this.

The last few months have been so poetic in the worst way. Watching death come in and get comfortable is something I have written about endlessly, morbidly interested in its finality and its process. Sunday was not a bad day. When she took her last breath, I was watching her face. Almost immediately the lines that pain had carved into her face were erased, the worried expression was gone, all features relaxed into nothing more than a body. Her release from that body was instant. I knew I was taking a gamble by being there, that death is a crapshoot and that it can end horribly or peacefully. I am so thankful that it was the latter. And now, all I can think about is my brother, my Grandma, my Uncles... Because I had a daily routine of calling my Mom every morning and every night and for the last three nights I have called her cell phone, oblivious of the fact that she is no longer here until her voicemail picks up.

The day after, I updated her blog with some details. Her blog was a place for her to talk about her disease and she has this huge network of friends and fellow cancer fighters. It wasn't difficult to write. Throughout Saturday and Sunday I had been watching her, learning the names of medications, so I could update as accurately as possible. This is how I cope: Information. I've written it in here before. Knowledge, information, acceptance, reality... These are my world. The emotional stuff is distant, there, but there beneath the things in my face.

As with any death, things are moving on and that is how it should be. I find myself willing to take less bullshit than ever before. I have no tolerance for people doing or saying hurtful things to eachother or to myself, regardless of the circumstances. It's not anything related to my Mom, but more the usual lack of kindness or consideration that is so common to daily life. A situation that would normally make me emotional and upset did not. It made me calmly furious. If my Mom's death has made me even stronger, even more made of iron, I am thankful for it. There are too many spaces where things can get in and affect me, and if those spaces are being sealed a little more strongly, I know I can continue onward.

Right now, I need to continue onward to the shower. Because I smell.