Numbers

I have never claimed to be a number person. Birthday’s, anniversaries, memorable dates, they don’t stick. Ask my husband, I forget our dating anniversary almost yearly. He is a patient man.

Just a few numbers stay with me these days. 25, 2, 150, and 1.

25 years ago, today my Mom had the greatest day of her life. She married our hero. Two months ago the world stopped spinning, and life ceased to feel relevant. The two grandsons my Mom left behind. The 150 souls that sat and sobbed in celebration of her life. The one husband, one son, and one daughter she left here. Those are numbers I remember.

The last two months have been nothing short of a clusterfuck. I consider myself an evolved individual with high levels of introspection and when I tell you I don’t know myself from one day to the next, I mean it. I am so lost.

Grief feels so deceitful. If I process, mourn and contribute to my grief, does it reduce what is left? Or does it continue to multiply? Or what if I am joyful, does that nullify her absence? How do I get out of the labyrinth Mom?

My experience is green. I have never felt loss like this. My core is cut out, removed, reduced to ash and sifted into a black box that sits in our family living room. The day she left us, a compartment of my soul came unplugged. Something I lived with forever and never knew it was there, until it was no longer. A void.

My Mom used to tell me I kept her alive. I know what she means now. My sons. They get me out of bed. They push me for more. More chicken nuggets, more screen time, more purpose and more life. I fear them seeing the carnage on the inside, externally. So I find joy. Or I fake it until I can.

If there is one thing the trailer park tornado, dumpster fire loss has taught me, it is how able I am. I am able. I am able to simultaneously hold joy in one hand and sorrow in the other.

Years ago I did a post about the idea that gratitude does not come once you are happy, it is divergent in fact. Happiness comes with the practice of gratitude. My entire body feels like a deep bruise. Shane calls it sorrow. Whatever it is, I cannot shake it. I am in deep bruising.

I hold that consistently. I am angry. Sore, scared, lost, lonely. I have never been so grateful for healthy children, great friends, my dogs and the people I love. This intense spike of sorrow has produced gratitude at the same magnitude. It is possible to hold both.

As much as I would love to hold gratitude alone, I will sit in this sorrow. With the sorrow comes far too many days between showering, junk food, dark humor and white claw. The price of my healing is waking up daily to go as long as I can without remembering she is gone. It is fighting to eat when I don’t want to. It is hiding tears from the boys sometimes. It’s canceling plans. I will pay the price of my grief. It is the debt of love for her, she deserves it.

I will hold joy, I will not run from my grief.

Happy 25th Anniversary Mommy, I love you.