"Your mom was a great person and I'll never forget her." "You and your dad will make it through, your mom wouldn't have it any other way." "Honey, you have been so brave throughout. I don't know how you do it." These comments bounce in my head like leaden weights as I sit in the back of a black Lincoln that will carry my father and me home. Relatives, friends, and people I didn't even know had come up to me at the funeral and said kind things about my mom. They were trying, I guess, to console my loss or maybe to console their own. It's wasn't working. They just made the pain worse, faking a sorrow that wasn't there. They just wanted to come see how the little girl who lost her mom was handling it. Wondering if she had gone crazy. Maybe that is too harsh. I'm sure some of them at least really meant well, but it all seems like an act. As if those people could ever hurt as much as I do. They could not possibly know what is going on in my head and my heart. My mother was gone. How could they ever know such pain as this? I felt lonely at the funeral, even though my dad stood next to me the whole time. We are in different worlds, mourning our loss separately, ignoring each other. I haven't really felt anything yet. I'm numb, still in shock. I haven't even cried. I can't because crying would be an admission of her death. I glance at my dad. He is sitting in his black suit, his thinning hair parted perfectly to one side. He hasn't let me see him cry yet, but I know that he has. I hear him in the night, controlled sobs carried though the house. I have lain awake in that place between sleep and alertness wondering when Mom is going to be home. It is a dream that seems so real, as if at any moment she is going to waltz into my room and comfort me by saying it was all a dream, it's all over. But I know the painful truth, that my mother lies in a cherry wood box in six feet of dirt. Now, my father glances back at me and gives me a sheepish smile. The smile says it will all be okay, but the pain he feels is unmistakable. His eyes betray him, they are full of pain and sorrow. He doesn't believe that we will ever be okay again. he doesn't know what to do next. I can tell Dad is worried about me. He doesn't know how I'm dealing with Mom being gone. I can't let him know how much I hurt. I have to lie and say I'm doing okay and withstand the urge to reach for him. We are not very close. We never have been, so her death has forced two perfect strangers to learn how to comfort each other. As we sit in the silence of the car, Dad puts his grief on the back burner to splurge and ask if I'm okay. "Yeah" I reply in an unexpectedly weak voice. I had surely meant it to sound much stronger. He looks right into my eyes and for the first time I can ever remember he says I love you. Then for the first time I cry. I cry hard in loud sobs. Dad envelops me in his broad shoulders. I lay in his arms, his aftershave is familiar and comfortable. I feel Dad's tears on my face. We just clutch each other and let the thought finally set in that she is really gone. I think back to that dreadful night. She had been out drinking with her girlfriends. She was drunk but had survived the trip home. My dad put her into bed and she was asleep instantly. Sometimes I wonder if she had died in an car accident would it have hurt so much? Would her death have made a little more sense? I'll never know. When I think back on it, Mom did drink a lot. She would have her afternoon drink when I got home. She had a drink with dinner and sometimes more before bed. Dad never could get her to help herself. I don't think he was strong enough to really do anything about it. Sometimes Mom was fine like nothing was wrong in the world. She would be making pancakes for breakfast in the morning and being a happy person. Then there were also the days she spent in bed silently crying. She literally spent days in bed not eating, not moving, so silent you might think she was dead. She somehow worked through those times and we never thought twice about them. I don't think I'll ever forgive myself for not saying a word and let it kill her. I so desperately wish I could go back in time and change everything to make it all just right. I had awoken from my sleep to a loud crash. It had been her lifeless body collapsing onto cold linoleum floor. Frightened, I ran to the source of the racket. In the bathroom, I found her sprawled out with a handful of sleeping pills. I screamed in disbelief, and just stood towering over her like a marble statue until the paramedics arrived. She was pronounced dead at the hospital at 4:19am. The reason given for death was suicide. My mother had taken her own life and with it shattered the life of my father and myself. She was gone in an instant that will never be retrieved. Mom lived on impulse and never thought things through. She felt that whatever came to mind first was probably the best bet. Her advice to me was always trust your gut. "Never second guess it can lead to trouble." she used to say. I wish I knew what had been running through her mind when be swallowed the sleeping pills. Had she really meant to kill herself or was she just trying to sleep and being as drunk as she was didn't know how much she was taking. So many "what if" questions rum through my mind. Nobody will ever know what was really going on in her mind that night. Suddenly, the Lincoln halts in front of home. Home. Not the word I would use anymore. Now, it's just a house that shelters me. I don't want to live here, it will hurt too much. Dad breaks away from our embrace. Coldness envelops us again as we get out of the blackness of the car. Outside, the sun shines and a crisp breeze stirs golden leaves in the yard. Dad lumbers slowly into the house like he would rather be anywhere else but here. I stand in front of my house, pondering what the inside holds for us now. Mom made it her sanctuary. Her idea of a vacation was candles and rainforest sounds at home. Mom had so many trinkets, garage sale finds and picture frames of the family everywhere. Chills run up my spine like a piercing wind as I think of the love that once filled that house. It was going to like being in a haunted house with some much of her still lingering. This morning I could still smell the vanilla perfume she wore. The house is so lifeless or rather full of the life of a dead mother. Dad and I haven't said any whole sentences to each other since Mom has been gone. We just don't have anything to say to each other. She would talk to both of us or to only one of us. Dad and I never actually initiated a conversation with each other. So having her gone we have no interaction at all. Neither one of us can approach the other to ask for a shoulder to cry on. Even though, we are each other's only chance for a little solace. It's been so hard living in that house. I even saw Dad looking through the apartments in the newspaper. I know he cannot stand the house anymore. I just want the hurt to go away. All the memories of my mother are already faded and dull now that she is not here to create new ones. It seems they are just dying away. I'm so afraid that one day I am going to wake up and not remember what she looks like, what her laugh sounds like and everything that makes her who she is. I am afraid of losing her all over again. I'm afraid too that if I remember everything, including her death. I don't want to hold onto to that memory, but it stands out graphic and ominous. I am in a position that I would not wish on my darkest enemy. I have to choose between remembering and forgetting an entire part of my life. I can't find the happy medium that would save me. Maybe I don't have to find it. Maybe I can live both sides of the coin. I love my mother as if she were right here with me. I can never stop that, it is something larger than me. I think that all I can do is love her and never forget her and let her fade. I won't remember the end of her life, because that was not what her life was about. Her whole life was not about ending it all in a handful of pills. So I will not remember her end but only what we shared together in happinesses. I sound so naive, I can't expect everything to fit together perfectly like a children's puzzle. I am not alone though, I have my father too. I guess I have forgotten that he is going through the same thing I am. He is hurting just the same. No one told me that this would be so hard. Then again no one expects their mother or wife to die. I am seeing things with a clearer focus than before. My house seems a little less haunted and lonesome with the realization that I'm not alone and never had been. I will talk to my dad and begin the slow process of getting to know each other. We can start by teaching each other what to say in those long silences over the breakfast table. I think we can learn to be human once again. This house seems more like a home. It is a different home with different people but it truly is home.
[Twistin' Knife Love] [Sweet Love] [Bit of Inspiration] [Head Down Low] [Short and Sweet] [Just a Little Darker]