Still, She Sang

A story about the second year of grief, expectations, and crying jags.

The first year is legendary as the most painful after a person dies. The first birthdays, yours and theirs. The holidays they loved, those people left alive feeling around for a way to find some sense of sameness – a way to fill the gap celebrating without them that cannot possibly be filled.

Yes, that first year after mom died was difficult, as I personally spent most of my energy trying not to cry in public. Somehow I believed I needed to buck up. Nobody wants to watch me cry, nose quivering, mouth distorted, tears drenching my weathered cheeks. I didn’t want to talk about how I felt. I just wanted to get through it, and I did that by avoiding most situations where my emotions were involved.

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In my home, which was also Mom’s home, her presence is felt in the corner where she sat in her lift chair, where a new chair now holds my body. I have the same view of the birds, the nature that lives just outside the window. The squirrels and chipmunks and deer, which she often called “four-leggeds” because she couldn’t remember their proper names. They dance about as if nothing has changed.

Everything has changed. I have changed.

I’m in year two of the slow waltz without her, and in so many ways it is more difficult. I think maybe because I’m less white-knuckled, more alive. I was expecting something different from the grieving; that it would be less than it was in the freshness of the firsts.

Christmas was her favorite holiday, in the tradition of her mother’s, where for those two generations it was a full-time job that everyone had presents and plenty of food and above all the love of family eating and laughing and loving. It has been ingrained in the hearts of every family member that this must go on with or without mom, and grandma.

My sisters and I text together in a group sister’s chat, where it is easier to express ourselves. I cry without them seeing, because at least two of us are often catapulted into a crying jag simply at seeing the other cry. My other sister is crying more these days, too. What is it, with us and the crying?

I admit, I’m a crier. I don’t want to judge myself for it, but clearly I still do. It makes people uncomfortable. Probably another generational trait I took on, my need for pleasing people. Lord knows I’ve spent decades simultaneously pleasing, judging myself, and attempting to understand and heal the need for it all.

When we gathered on Christmas Day, almost the entire extended family spent three hours together. I had surface conversations while eating carry-in food, laughing and loving, me playing the part of the daughter that is okay.

We gathered in a circle, or rather an oval, more than twenty of us reciting the traditional Lord’s Prayer, a chain of diverse people holding hands. There was no mention of the most profound loss any of us have ever experienced. Maybe everyone wanted to avoid the messiness of lumpy throats and strangled tears. I know I did.

Mom was not there. Grandma Pat was not there. I could not even feel her.

collage art by Charrise

Big surprise, I prayed with a quivered voice, mighty in my effort not to release the tears that wanted to flow. I have wept during prayer for years, even before mom’s death. I used to be sad because my children, who both live far away, were often not in the circle. Loss and sadness, and now grief.

I managed to show up at the places where I was expected this season. I looked forward to our traditional gatherings more this year than in the caregiving years or the first year of grief. There were years I was just so tired.

Showing up this year – I’m taking that as a win.

Change is such a part of life, and as long as I’m alive I must adapt alongside the waves of loss that are certain, and also the unexpected small things that change without notice. Expectations are a bitch. My work is to let them go.

Today is mom’s birthday, my second without her. I will sing her happy birthday, the way she sang into the phone for every family member up until her death, her song becoming weaker and more tentative every year.

Still, she sang, and so will I.

If this piece touched something in you, it’s bound to help someone else. Your sharing with your people is important, if we are to heal. We are walking each other home.

Come closer. Tell me what this work stirred in you. Share yourself with me.