Quarter Life Project

Grief, Lies, and Contradictions

Grief sends a person in many directions. For the past nine months since mom died I’ve experienced a rainbow of emotions, which for the most part have remained under wraps. When a person experiences one loss, it’s tough. But when a person experiences a bunch of losses in succession, that’s even tougher. I of course, fall into the latter category with the latest loss occurring on Christmas Eve. Merry Christmas to me.

I heard various people say I was handing her death rather well, implying that people who break down in front of others are weak, I guess. At her funeral  I was void of showing any emotion (except one instance where crying became contagious). Here’s a secret: while she was sick and I became sure that things weren’t going to get any better, I went to bookstores and read almost every book in the grief/death section so that I would be better prepared to deal. It didn’t make it any easier, but it did prep me for when it happened.

When a cousin’s unexpected death toward the end of the year ripped through the family, I felt it was my duty to be there. Perhaps it was too soon, since the nauseous feeling I had in the weeks following mom’s death returned. Nonetheless I fought through it and stayed there, attempting to be the rock they could lean on. I recall hearing his mother saying she didn’t know how I had the strength to get through this.

Here’s a secret: I’m fuckin’ TERRIFIED. I feel like my strength is a lie, a cover. It’s not me.

I deal by not dealing. I remained stoic throughout the entire year and dealt with my issues by pretending they didn’t exist. As far as I was and am still concerned, my mother didn’t look like herself in the casket. To this day I refuse to believe it was her in there, even though I know she’s never going to walk through that door. I actually admire those who can show emotion during times like that; I think they’re able to heal faster than someone like me who internalizes everything.

Mom’s loss definitely affected the way I interact in relationships with family, friends, etc. I noticed it the other day when someone said they’d stop by after work and never showed up, and when I didn’t hear back from one of my mom’s closest friends who I’ve grown attached to after calling her for the past couple weeks. I find myself getting close to others, and then pushing them away for fear of losing them too. This feeling of abandonment is at an all-time high.

I bought two bottles of wine and plan to finish one tonight. There are dark days ahead.

Silence really isn’t all that golden

They say experiencing loss helps a person grow and evolve, but they never said how hard it would be. This year I lost two people I cared deeply about, and the only thing it’s made me do is turn numb. Loving someone after losing them is very difficult, especially when you don’t have a sibling or a shoulder to lean on often.

My family is gone, and while I may have friends to fill some of the void, it’s different. Friends have their own lives to worry about while my mom was a presence that was always around, whether I wanted her to be there or not. I miss the bickering between us and the crazy things she used to do, and I’m scared that as time goes on I’ll forget her.

Seven months later and I still fall asleep with the TV on, until early this morning when it decided to stop working. Now I find myself up at 3am, unable to go back to sleep. I suppose the television helped me feel like there was someone here, and that I wasn’t completely alone all the time. I can’t bear to be alone with my thoughts… it’s entirely too quiet in this house.

Death etiquette

I didn’t create this blog to gather pity from anyone, I hoped it would help sort out my feelings on everything, mostly those of anger. I also hoped it would get me back into the swing of writing. If anyone can get anything out of these entries, then that’s good too.

My mother’s passing was bad enough, but some of the things I’ve encountered from people made it a million times worse. And that’s why today I’m going to talk about proper etiquette in dealing with a friend who has suffered a loss:

• Do not look at your friend with pity. This is one thing I absolutely HATED even when my mom was alive. When friends came to visit her in the hospital, they looked at her with such sadness on their faces that I know it took a toll on my mom, who was normally a happy person. She would kick people out of the room if the mood became too dark for her to take. After her death, all the looks I got were ones of pity, like I wouldn’t be equipped to handle the situation. Newsflash: I’m a twentysomething, I have a job, and I have a good head on my shoulders.
• Do not ask your friend invasive questions. Two days after my mother died, the house phone was ringing off the hook. People asked me how my finances were, if I was going to stay in the apartment, If I was going to get a roommate, and when the funeral was. Now the last question isn’t really so much invasive, but at the same time I was still trying to wrap my mind around planning the funeral, finding all the information my mom had left for me, and figuring out how I was going to do this all on my own. One lady called the house and started grilling me from the moment I picked up the phone: “When is the funeral going to be? Is it going to be in such and such church? What day will it be? Is it going to be in the morning or the evening?” Honestly, that was the only time I lost my cool and started yelling at someone through the whole ordeal. As for the other questions, if they’re something you wouldn’t normally ask that person, then it’s still none of your business even when death is involved.
• Do not ever compare your friend’s death to anything else unless you have experienced a similar, if not the same, kind of loss. I actually ended up talking to a UPS man my mom knew very well and discussed the whole ordeal. I learned that he had dealt with the same thing when his son passed. The things people said to him were unbelievable; one compared him losing his son to someone losing their job. Also, a person mourning the loss of a pet should not compare that to the loss of a relative, it’s not the same no matter how much you try to convince yourself it is.
• If you’ve recently lost someone close to you, do not throw that on your friend in conversation. Just because you’re going through the same thing doesn’t mean your friend is now your grief counselor. This summer, a friend of mine that I hadn’t talked to in months came to me about his friend’s death. Being that we hadn’t talked in months and the first thing out of  his mouth was this, and being that it had been approximately three months after my mother was buried, the conversation was not only uncomfortable for me but it was something I really didn’t want to hear about. One thing people have to understand is just because a person has experienced death in their lives doesn’t mean they want to talk about it 24/7. It also doesn’t make them well-equipped to answer questions, especially if they’re still dealing with grief themselves.
• Don’t try to find the right words. If you have nothing to say, it’s okay. Seriously. Another thing I encountered were people who said things like “She’s in a better place now,” “At least she’s no longer suffering,” or, “She’s with her maker now.” These words did not make me feel better by any means. I remember a friend called to check up on me and see how I was doing, and after a while there was a lag in the conversation. I knew she was trying to find the right words to say, and I told her to stop. It was enough that she cared to call, and that made my day. It’s okay to feel awkward, just so long as you’re there for the person and the person knows it.

If anyone has anything to add onto the list, feel free.

Two and a half weddings… and a funeral

When I was in junior high school, I became envious of kids whose parents were still married and wondered why I couldn’t be one of them. As a result, family became really important to me. I always had this image of eventually getting married, having children, having my children know their background which would include the cultural background of where we came from and meeting their grandparents. I unfortunately, do not have anything to offer for the future since I don’t know where I came from and the dreams of my future children meeting their grandmother are now shattered.

A day after mom was buried, I headed off to another state for a cousin’s wedding that both me and mom were supposed to attend together. I figured the time away from home would make me feel better, and for the most part it did- I was away from my job, and I didn’t have to think about anything back home. But after the ceremony was over and the reception took place, I felt even more alone than before. I ended off the night sitting at one of the tables alone and sort of spaced out, and it occurred to me that every wedding I went to or knew of this year was going to be pretty painful for me.

So cue the summer, when I attended a book club meeting at a cafe and happened to run into a newlywed couple who had gotten married the day before enjoying lunch with their parents, respectively. I was really happy for the couple (I knew one of them), but throughout the meeting I’d glance over at the table where they were and become a little envious of the fact that when I get married, I’d never be able to enjoy a leisurely lunch with my parents and his parents, whoever they may be. And while some people would say I’d be a part of a new family, I still want to be able to hold on to who I am and have other people be a part of that.

The following week had me again leave the state to be a part of a wedding. I figured the busier I kept myself, the more I wouldn’t have to focus on it. And just like the wedding I had been to earlier this year, I was fine until it ended. The day after was probably one of the hardest days since the only people left were from the combined families. I happened to have lunch with all of them, and I felt like such an outsider.

Don’t misunderstand me, I’m truly happy for all of the couples that tied the knot this year. But all it did was just remind me of the family that I don’t have. And it hurts.

With Death Comes New Life

The last time I wrote an entry on this blog was the beginning of the end of my project. Before I left for the comedy show, I received a phone call from my mother asking her where I was. When I told her I was going to a show, she dropped the bomb that she was in the hospital and that she would be there for a couple of days. I immediately regretted purchasing tickets for the show, but what could I do? I figured I’d probably need a few laughs anyway. I did enjoy the show, but I was unable to focus. Perhaps that might’ve effected the way I interacted with the comedians, and why I wasn’t really able to hold conversations as well as I would have liked. The month following that show was the most stressful of my life, resulting in multiple hospital visits, withdrawal from all of my college courses, and my mother’s death a few days after my class departure. At that point I didn’t feel like doing anything or talking to anyone, let alone writing.

October 15th would have been my mother’s 66th birthday, but instead it’s going to mark the six-month anniversary of her death. In some ways it feels like she’s been gone for a long time, yet it feels like these months flew by. I’m still trying to clean up the aftermath, literally and figuratively. There’s so much stuff in the house to go through and I won’t let anyone help me with the stuff in her room, which is basically Ground Zero. Emotionally I wouldn’t consider myself a wreck, since I haven’t had any emotional breakdowns. What HAS happened, however, is I find it extremely hard to concentrate, and my memory is pretty poor. This poses a problem for the fall semester at my college and at my job.

This blog is no longer going to be focusing on new things done every day, but about life after the death of my mother as a twentysomething. Losing your parent at any age is difficult, but reaching full adulthood and not having a parent to share experiences on being a mother after their child has become one is something I’ll probably be longing for the rest of my life. You know, when I have kids.

In any case, I’ve made some observations over the past few months that I’ll end up sharing over time, with regularity. I promise.