Empty

Yesterday I buried my mother.  Today it is hitting me.  Every moment is a confused mess of questions, all of them starting with “why”.  Why are you gone?  Why did this happen?  Why didn’t we do enough to save you?  

Or “how”...How can I live without you?  How will I get through this?  How did this happen?  How is it possible you are not here anymore?  How can I ever be happy or feel secure again if you are not in my life?

None of these questions really capture how I feel.  I feel so lost, so broken, so insubstantial.  I am in a fog and I do not know what direction is which.  I walk into rooms and forget why, I get out of the shower and realize I have forgotten to rinse shampoo and soap off of me.  I keep picking up the phone to call my mom and catch myself and that feels like ripping a band-aid off very slowly from a wound that won’t ever heal.

I do not know if I will ever get through this or over this.  The world feels like a great big scary place now.  I do not have an anchor or a compass, both of which were two of the things my mom was to me.  I do not have a conscience, I do not know who to talk to or who to ask the Big Questions.  They always say mother knows best and that has always been true with my mom.  I would ask advice on something (or she would give it to me anyway) and I would sometimes do the opposite, and every time it turns out she knew best.   

I don’t know what I am going to do.  I am not sure there is anything to be done.  She is gone.  I know on an intellectual level she is free of pain and in a better place.  But I want her back.  I want her back and that is never going to happen.  I don’t know what to do.  I can’t even figure out the next five minutes let alone a lifetime.  I assumed she would always be here and never thought she would die.  I thought there would be a long slow road but that that road would lead to recovery and life.  Even towards the end, those last couple of days before she passed, I kept having irrational thoughts that she could turn around, that the doctors would think of something else, or that mom would want to keep on trying.  It still has not truly settled in that she is gone.  

Everything is so pale.  There are no more colors, there are no good things anymore.  There is nothing but this never-ending sadness and incompleteness and horror and disbelief.  Knowing death is going to happen does not make it one bit easier to digest or accept.  Knowing is not equal to acceptance.  There are no guidebooks or pamphlets or advice than can ever prepare you for the loss of your mom.  There is nothing but blackness and absence of light.  I know how Hiroshima and Nagasaki must have felt because the devastation and emptiness inside me is greater than both of those cities.  Only there will be no soldiers or anyone to come in and rebuild because nobody can rebuild my mom.  

Everything seems so unreal.  Like my eyes are seeing a movie instead of what is really around me.  I wish someone would wake me up.  It’s not fair to be trapped in a nightmare that is so real.