It’s been 814 days since my mother died. That number seems astronomical. 814 days without her voice greeting me over the phone, telling me about her day and how she beat my dad at cards…again. 814 days without an “I love you, Sis” or a hug around the neck or a summary of the latest book she just read.
Day 814 is different from day 14. The darkness comes less often. The memories seem sweeter. Less painful than before. I can smile when I remember her and share her story of cancer without crying…most of the time.
But for some reason, day 814 has been difficult. In a surprising way. Perhaps the overcast sky that made the house dark and shadowy like it was on day 1 has brought the tears back again. Maybe it’s the Saturday cleaning like we did nearly every Saturday of my growing up years that makes me miss her so much I can hardly think of anything else. Or the dreams I had during the night of seeing her signature and bursting into tears. Of going on vacation as a family and feeling worried because she says she’s fine but I know she’s sick and being brave for us.
In my dreams, she’s just as she was before. I can almost hear her voice, but not quite. It’s more like I feel it echo inside. I know what she’s said and how she’s said it, but the decibels escape me. I feel the dissonance between what my unconscious is imagining and what I know to be true. I’m watching her but I know she isn’t really there. It’s a dream. The churning in my gut waking me. The heartache coming back in waves.
There was a time when every day felt like day 814, And in some unexplainable way, it feels good to hurt again. It proves to my heart that current peace and happiness don’t negate my love or my loss. She would be happy to see me happy…and yet it feels like a betrayal of sorts. I suppose that’s why they say love is complicated. Conflicting emotions existing simultaneously. Each giving space for the other.
They say life is never the same after loss. You only come to know a new normal. At first, I couldn’t believe this emptiness in my heart could ever equal normal—yet it has. The wound is still there. The grief just as potent on days when it demands attention. But I have changed. I have grown in my capacity to experience more than just missing her.
Now the missing weaves itself into daily life, the black of the thread creating a contrast that somehow makes the picture more beautiful than before. There is a depth and breadth to every experience that could not be grasped without first going through the narrow, suffocating, blindness of losing her. There is a sadness that is softly present—a wishing that she could see what is. A wanting to tell her about my day, knowing she would be so glad to hear it. To show her pictures that would make her smile.
In these moments she lives on. Ever a part of my life as she is ever a part of me.