The End of Days - 6/22/11
I feel like I am in limbo; caught somewhere between childhood and now, sorrow and joy. I am scared for myself, terrified for my mother. The sense of loss is beyond anything I have ever known, yet at the same time, my heart is full and my conscience has been given a slight reprieve.
The perfect order of things has changed. I feel I must redefine who I am, what I've become, this time with a history that has just been rewritten, a history that includes a mother who was a much greater part of it than I had remembered.
Although I have been fortunate enough to spend seven long days with my mother, there is a void of fifty five years that will never be filled, a void that can't really be measured in time, years, days, and there is an emptiness for all I have missed that will stay with me forever. I have lost more than time; I have lost an integral part of myself, my history, my memories, my past. I will never be completely whole or fulfilled again and I know whenever I think back to anything in my life, it will feel wrong, incomplete and unforgiving.
Yet, even so, I am profoundly changed. For the first time in my life, I got to know my mother, got to see who she was, let her know she had that daughter she always needed; that daughter that was finally kind, loving, understanding and unconditionally present. I can't be sorry that it took so long, that it took something as cruel as dementia, that it happened with just moments to spare, at 9 minutes to midnight and still counting down. I can only be grateful that it did happen before it was too late, before we both left this world with nothing to prove that we did indeed exist together, that nothing passed between us, that we remained strangers. And I am more than grateful, more than honored that we've been given this chance, this respite, this small window of time.
I never got a chance to tell her about my life now, what I've been doing the last eight years or the past thirty years. I didn't get a chance to tell her about my family, my life, my home, my plans, my dreams, my weaknesses. There were no details and no facts. I never got to say I'm sorry. Somehow, none of that mattered, none of it had anything to do with right here, right now, my mother, me, trying to stretch out a final joyous moment that's been such a long time coming.
My mother showed me this past week that love, loyalty and blood are stronger than any disease, transcends speech, intellect and understanding. I know now that there is greatness in ordinary things and there are no memories sweeter or more bitter than those that change you, impact you, destroy you and heal you - all in the same breath and all with mercy and kindness, loss and gain.
I remember reading once: " In search of my mother's garden, I found my own. " There is a small element of truth to this, yet I can't help believe that we should never have to search in the first place. If we were whole, undamaged, aware, we would instinctively know from the beginning that such a garden exists, that it doesn't take years, despair or unanswered questions to be motivated to find it. It just is. Always has been.
I wish I could recall when it all changed for me, when my childhood became a test rather than a result, when my family, or more specifically my mother, became so inaccessible, so distant, so unfamiliar. I wish I could remember that moment, go back to that very instant and forget it forever, change it, make it something that held no substance, had no matter, made no difference.
I still have no idea when it happened or what it was. But it became the very thing that changed my direction, made me lose my way, gave me that eternal sense of emptiness that brought me to here, this moment, this day, where I can only wonder where would we all be if things had been different.
I still wear my regrets like a straight jacket. Probably more so now than ever before. Yet still, I can finally move within its confines, I can breath a little easier. Yes, I can breathe.
