Some say it comes in waves, but that would suggest a rhythm one can predict. I feel no rhythm in my grief from the death of my mother less than a month ago but I do live in a slow motion pace inside a bubble from which I see my altered world.

 

Outside, the bubble is a world of noise, inside is silence and muted sounds. When grief hits, the bubble bursts and sadness invades my head until the bubble grows again with me back in it. I don’t mind the world inside the bubble, though I fear my constant retreat to it will prevent me from living in real time.

 

Four days after my mom died, I lay in my bathtub soaking in water and read every singe text we had shared since February. Then I rang her mobile phone. She didn’t answer, but you knew that already.

 

I can’t explain why I called her number, no more than I can explain why I felt the need to constantly kiss her when she was in the hospital, that horrible nursing home she spent a month in or why I apologized for being separated from my husband or my need to rub her feet every singe day even after she took her last breath.

 

I had thought that when my mother died, it would be the worst heartbreak. It would be intense and painful and follow me round with every single breath, dragging behind me like a boulder.

 

While that is true ,  I also live my life, I have fun, I laugh and all seems fine and then bam. There it is again. It may last a minute, 10 minutes, an hour, a few days and then it’s gone. Just like that. Grief is crazy-making with an element of surprise and the constant knowledge that no matter what you do she is gone, never to return, never ever ever ever.

 

Losing a mother is like being on a ship that has lost it’s ballast and is now at the mercy of the deepest ocean and all it holds within. I bob around without a foundation to bring me back to the same balanced spot each time, a spot I just can’t get right. Instead, I spend my time sideways, upside down, rightside up, sinking to the ocean floor and floating back up, taken on the current to places I have never been.

 

My bubble burst again this week. It was stretched beyond repair and I wrestled within it, trying to find a space to survive away from the madness inside my head.

 

Turns out I just want my mom.

 

It also reminds me that I have put the grieving of a significant romantic relationship (marriage) to the side when the end of life’s ultimate relationship took precedence and now there is no escaping either. I wanted one to comfort me for the loss of the other and vice-versa, yet they couldn’t. Grief is like that; it intensifies every loss no matter the size and takes residence inside your head.

 

Four months ago my mom went to lunch with me on my birthday and for whatever reason I knew that day that something was horribly wrong. I just didn't know what. Three weeks later she told me they found a tumor on her spine.

 

When I was told my mom had cancer, I was determined to identify an exact prognosis, a figure I could put in my planner as if controlling time was a) within my power and b) the key to keeping my grief at bay. If I could manage the time I did have, then I could easily move forward and get on with my life after that date, right?

 

When I called half an hour after her and her brother returned home from the specialists for the biopsy results, I found out three things. 1) The cancer wasn't just on her spine. It started in her lungs and had spread...every singe place in her entire body and in her bones. 2) The cancer was, in the words of the specialist, stage 4, inoperable and incurable. 3) There would be no chemotherapy and only a short course of palliative radiotherapy to just relieve some pain in her back.

 

Prognosis? The prognosis they said depended on her functionality and she was bed ridden at the time. Could be 3 months, 6 months or a year, if she could get out of bed and get moving. Like all doctors he can’t tell you how and when and what date and time you are going to die.

 

She lasted six weeks and three days after her official diagnosis. She would have lasted longer but the hospice Dr did the very thing my mom was afraid of, gave her so much medicine and It killed her in her sleep, alone. I was on my way to see her the next morning and was going to spend the night eating cheese and crackers as she had requested. She died before we had that one more night together.

 

Inspired by her own desire to face it head-on, I ran towards her for the last vulnerable weeks of her life and was rewarded with some truly special times. What I miss the most is the constance of her presence in this world, in my world and the physical aspects of her body being here and the sound of her voice.

 

My body, born from hers, has acutely felt the physical loss. The warmth of her hand and the sound of her laugh.

 

When I was born, the only other person in the room was my mother (and the Dr of course) That’s what I miss. Just my mother and me in the room.

 

She lives inside of me now in my thoughts, in my heart and in my soul. I miss her so much it's sometimes hard to get out of bed, to eat, to laugh to keep going. Every time I go to sleep I hope to see her in my dreams.