As I enter the season of the anniversary of Momma’s death, I keep going back in time to the first few weeks after she died. My life was put on hold on the evening of November 1 when I received the call that Momma had fallen, and I don’t fully remember being engaged in my surroundings or present in my daily life until weeks later. I did what I needed to do, all of the communicating and navigating that needs to occur to stay strong for family and to lay someone to rest. When I revisit those moments in my mind, I know that I was fueled often by raw emotion, sometimes by blinding anger, and always by adrenaline. Nothing is as clear now as I would like it to be.
What I do remember is the overwhelming outpouring of support and sympathy. All of the exchanges of dinners, calls, notes and favors. I vividly remember the looks in so many familiar eyes as I stood in my doorway glassy -eyed and bone tired, graciously receiving the warm dishes filled with dinner and leftovers for days. The looks that said to me, “I don’t know what to say.” “I’m terrified of this happening to me.” There I stood in my veil of uninvited grief receiving this literal and mental feast of sympathy. The meals and favors came for days, gifts for which I am forever grateful. The intensity of the grief and sympathy were the focal point of my days. Momma’s death was expected in the sense that she had been suffering from Parkinson’s dementia, but unexpected in that the fall took her life. I had spent the greater part of two years prior to her death worrying about her decline, about Daddy’s stamina as a caregiver, about my own guilt as a daughter with a less than perfect relationship. I had shared my struggles with a precious few. Then, after Momma’s passing, I found myself standing as the guest of honor at a feast of guilt and grief, robotically receiving my guests with simultaneous gratitude and awkwardness.
Then at some point, the abundance of attention stops; it all goes away for a while. It quiets down. Time passes. There are those you hold close that remember the little moments and big dates and everything in between, always standing by. But, there are days that the feast becomes famine. Everything falls back in place and the mundane tasks of the day to day take over. This is the grace of the grieving process, I estimate, but then, when you least expect it, that break in the drought of remembrance sends rain down upon you with such blinding force and intensity that you are so full of longing that you cannot catch a breath.
When I cleaned out the house with Daddy, I found a piece of Momma that takes my breath away. This envelope served as Momma’s record of her contractions as she awaited me in November of 1971. I did not know her as a young first time mother, waiting for her baby and so diligently recording the signs of arrival. I wish I could know that young nervous woman. I SEE her now. This is a gift to me in my grief that allows me to feast on the memory of my mother as a person separate from me, from Daddy, from my sister. I want seconds, thirds; I’m insatiable in my desire to know her with fresh eyes. I can relate to her as a young woman, as a first time mother. But we never discussed it. I will never forget the circumstances of my babies’ entry into this world. They will, but I won’t and I will tell them repeatedly now how I feel for them and how I felt when I was expecting them. What I have uncovered in my longing for Momma is a piece of her, concrete proof of our existence as mother and daughter in a complete state of beginning.
On November 7th, the date of my birth and date of Momma’s admittance to hospice last year, I will think of nothing but this young, pretty, anxious, and more than slightly quirky Air Force wife who was preparing to give me life. The young, handsome, loving, football obsessed man who was hoping that I wouldn’t truly arrive until after the Alabama LSU game. The woman who was my mother, who I have grown so much closer to in death.
Not all feasts leave you feeling satisfied, some leave you sick. This feast of grief has me so, so very full.
Just Say Momma 