Happy Birthday Mum
When I was tiny you encompassed me and was all that I knew. You protected me like a she-bear would her own cub. You were strong and vibrant and loving.
Towards the end I felt I could have broken you in my arms. You were fragile, brittle and weak. Most of all you were sick.
Once when I was a baby you accidentally bowled me down a shopping aisle, I never remembered but you always told me so.
When I was a child people told you 'He is too pretty to be a boy,' I never remembered that either, but you always told me so.
Today I'd like to think you'd be proud of me. But I'll never know. You'll never get to see me change, to be successful, to be a father, to get married, to grow old.
I used to think that our relationship is trapped in amber but today I'm not so sure. I try to remember you as you were before you were sick, not as you were just before you died, but it is hard.
I want to keep your memory alive, but I also need to let you go, although I'm never really sure what I should keep and what I should let go of. I know I should let go of the worry, the hurt, and the anger. Perhaps I need to forget in order to live. Some days I wish that I could. Some days are alright and I don't think about you. Other days I want to remember you, but I can't think of what it is that I want to remember about you. My mind goes blank and all I can remember is the end.
Today it would have been your birthday. You would have been 56 years old today. 56 doesn't seem very old to me. Wish you were still here with me. Love you.
Towards the end I felt I could have broken you in my arms. You were fragile, brittle and weak. Most of all you were sick.
Once when I was a baby you accidentally bowled me down a shopping aisle, I never remembered but you always told me so.
When I was a child people told you 'He is too pretty to be a boy,' I never remembered that either, but you always told me so.
Today I'd like to think you'd be proud of me. But I'll never know. You'll never get to see me change, to be successful, to be a father, to get married, to grow old.
I used to think that our relationship is trapped in amber but today I'm not so sure. I try to remember you as you were before you were sick, not as you were just before you died, but it is hard.
I want to keep your memory alive, but I also need to let you go, although I'm never really sure what I should keep and what I should let go of. I know I should let go of the worry, the hurt, and the anger. Perhaps I need to forget in order to live. Some days I wish that I could. Some days are alright and I don't think about you. Other days I want to remember you, but I can't think of what it is that I want to remember about you. My mind goes blank and all I can remember is the end.
Today it would have been your birthday. You would have been 56 years old today. 56 doesn't seem very old to me. Wish you were still here with me. Love you.
8 comments:
Your mum will always be around to see you change, to see you be successful, to see you be a father and get married and to grow old. A mother's love never passes.
I'd very much like to believe that Mish. In a very real sense she is gone. One of the dilemmas of being raised atheist I suppose. In another the way people live on is through through others and how we remember them.
Thanks.
Ed
Your mum will love this post. Don't think for a second she doesn't feel your love.
Beautiful post.
I hope she would like this post Steph. Perhaps she might be saddened by it too as she would not want me fucking my life up because of what happened to her. Too late for that I suppose. That is part of my problem - I tend to dwell on things - I'm also an atheist/realist most of the time with no real - less? - ways of resolving such existential dilemmas. If there was a god then the god either does not care about people at all, or if god 'cared' and 'did this' to her and to my family as some fucked up 'test' then that is completely fucked too. Or there simply is no god, the worms get you when you are gone, she is gone forever, she'll never read this either.
I got to find a way out.
It's much harder when you lose a child but I see it as a circle. I believe that we do come back until we learn every lesson that life has to teach us. I'm not at all religious, this is just something I feel.
Jahteh - I have no point of comparison between loss of a parent or loss of a child. Grief is not measurable. Whose to say what is worse? And by saying 'it is much harder to lose a child' is it to diminish or dismiss the grief of others, thereby making your own grief at loss of a child more important or special or tragic? No doubt it is an horrific experience, but I have a friend who lost her baby, but she never made the comparison between her hurt and mine.
Acceptance of your own end and of others is the hardest thing in the world to do. So we take comfort in material things, distractions, fucking, reality TV, god and an 'afterlife'. In the end a person is faced with the void. The only things that exist after death is the memory of that person by others, their children, and their creative works. Hopefully a person leaves behind all three. But in reality we should perhaps settle on one.
I meant no comparison with your grief. It's harder in the way that as an older parent you realize how much they've missed of life. I'm sorry if I didn't explain it very well.
Jahteh - I suppose that it seems more "natural" when someone dies at a much older age in say their 80s or 90s. People can say things like "they had a good run" and other such cliches. When children die at a very early age, for example at birth, people can also seemingly make the death more reasonable "they were weak," "they were sick," "there were complications."
But essentially you still are claiming that it is "harder" to lose a child than it is to lose a parent. Hence still "one case is worse than another" thus still making a comparison of sorts.
Grief is not quantifiable in this way. No doubt both scenarios can be horrific and traumatic. I don't particularly care what age a person dies, if people are grieving for that person then it is legitimate.
My mother was only 56. She still had a lot more to give. She suffered a lot with cancer before she took her life. She is still going to miss a lot of life.
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