Kimchi, not for me

Grief is a funny thing. Obviously not funny in the "ha ha" sense, but funny in the sense of being different and strange. When you lose a loved one, initially the pain is just too much to bear. It's shocking, and leaves you numb. During the numbness, there may be occasional moments of comprehension, but they (in my experience) were blessedly brief. When the death is so recent, actual comprehension is probably too much for us.

It has almost been five years since my mother died. It's so strange because the first year is a mix of vivid memories and absolute numbeness. I am able to so clearly recall being absolute numb, an absolute zombie. Then I can also remember frequent breakdowns. I remember dreading the one-year mark as it rolled around, because I felt like I should have been "better" than I was. Time has passed, and time truly does make it easier. No...that's not right.

Time makes it routine. Nothing makes it easier. As days, weeks, months, and even years pass, you become used to the absence of the person. But truly, nothing makes it easier. Perhaps the whole acceptance stage of grief is not so much acceptance of the loss, as it is acceptance of the change in routine. Because I find that even now, almost 5 years later, the reality of the loss can hit me like a ton of bricks, and all of a sudden, I'm devastated.

It's in those moments that it becomes obvious to me that animals truly do take on the personalities of their owners. My poor little dog goes codependent on me...curled up as close to me as possible (she'd prefer actually being ON me), trying to lick my face if I'm crying, and absolutely not letting me out of her sight. I just left my bedroom where I'd cried for a bit (the thing that brought all this one was a sad movie about Christmastime, family, and the mother of the family dying), and Daive followed me in here and literally was at my feet, staring up at me with the concerned look peculiar to the dog who somehow seemed to grasp early on that a major way she earned her keep was in being my therapy dog.

I guess the moral of the story is that grief hurts...still. It's worse on the holidays, near the anniversary of her death, and somehow even worse with me being so far from home. Perhaps it's just that I have less to distract me? Well, less to distract me that is intelligible.

And I have all kinds of useless questions. Would it be better or worse if our family were less dysfunctional (and more like the close-knit family in the movie)? Would it be better knowing before-hand like the family in the movie? If we had known, what would have been different? Even though it came as a surprise, I count myself fortunate that I was able to speak with her before she died...even though she was unconscious. They said that hearing is the last thing to go, but I wonder how anyone could know that. I think it's just something they tell the family members, to help them or make them feel better. I have the comfort of knowing that the last words I spoke to my mother were "I love you," and "I'm sorry." (But in reverse order.) How would I feel if the last words I had spoken to her were, "Don't forget to pick up mayo at the store," or "Yes, I let the dog out?"

But the questions are useless...partially because it's over and done with, and there's no changing it now, and partly because I think it's something I think about to either distract or punish myself. If only I had done this...or NOT done that...if only I had annoyed everyone into clearing their schedules for a family picture before Christmas...if only I hadn't snapped at her on Christmas Eve when I was filling the stockings and she wanted to know what everything was... if only I hadn't been so annoyed with her one of those last Sundays at church when she was telling someone (who was a stranger to me) about my piercings, even the ones I no longer had...

But I can't change those things. And even if I could, I don't think they would have mattered much. My relationship with my mother was pretty rocky at times. But I know that deep down she loved me a lot, and she knew that I loved her. We drove each other nuts at times, mostly due to the fact that our personalities were quite similar, but I know it's okay. And I wonder if that's an accurate realization, or if it's like what C.S. Lewis talks about in "A Grief Observed," about how the mental image of your lost loved one changes gradually until they have taken on this near-angelic status. It's hard when you can't even trust your own memories, the few you have.

You know, I'm not even sure why I'm blogging about this. It's easily the most intensely personal thing I've ever blogged about. Perhaps it's because I don't think I could really verbalize these thoughts. At least this way they're out of my head.