This will be the third Mother’s Day since DJ died, I can’t say that it is coming with any special anxiety, altho the constant everyday background sadness is spiking some and I did awake crying in the middle of the night a few days ago, there have been no great waves like in the beginning…not this time...yet. Remembering the year of firsts is cloudy at times, but some things do stand out; the first Mother’s Day without DJ is one. I’m visiting that time now only because of our kids…I’m watching as they endure the agony of reliving the entire episode of DJ’s dying as if it were only yesterday; knowing the feeling, we can understand only too well what they are going through. For the most part, that particular feeling, the one where time appears to be stretched and the order of some events can become jumbled appears to come and go at will; it's that time when you really question yourself as to if this happened yesterday, last week or last year; that time when you will be moving along in the different life, doing what you have come to regard as the new normal and out of somewhere, (not nowhere), you are brought to your emotional knees once again by the impact of the hard realization that yes, your loved one is really gone and all that it implies which also comes along. As a parent, I'm finding it to be one of the most difficult things to deal with, watching as your children are in pain and being unable to ease the agony. We talk and they know I understand, but as with our own loss of partner grief, this can only do so much, only go so far as it's all just so damn personal...I think just being there has to be enough at times.
In dressing the kids for special days, I imagine DJ was like many mothers; of course there was shopping to be done for new frocks and what not. Early in our marriage, when the girls were young, she loved dressing them alike, later, as they grew older this lost its appeal for them and today they can laugh as they talk about how much they disliked it as they got older. Plans would be made for the day, for us it was usually a family gathering for dinner with gifts being exchanged at some point. Our family is what I call female loaded, now, this is not a bad thing just the fact of our given situation; there appears to be far more women that men in our family, and almost all of them are mothers. DJ’s own mom, being the matriarch would of course be there and along with other family members who were mothers and they all would be given special praise. Sadly, earlier this year, DJ's mother passed, joining her as a memory for us to keep. The bonding which occurred among those women cannot be denied or underestimated and I’m sure this is adding to the already devastating pain the children are having. Sure, the kids and I have sat and talked about the grief, the accompanying pain and the emotional upheaval it has introduced into our lives but at times talk seems useless; altho enduring our own personal experience of grief, we are supporting one another as best we can and I am convinced it has made a difference in each of our own Journeys. For me, this year, this third Mother’s Day without DJ, I am remembering an earlier time, a time which had been fraught with uncertainty and despair, but in the end, really turned out to be one of the most memorable Mother’s Day we every enjoyed.
It occurred following what DJ and I had come to call the hungry time, not that we actually went without food, but the pickings had been slim for a while, parts of it are detailed here in ‘Solitaire’, April 21, 2012. Because of the situation, we were feeling pretty low, despite our best efforts, we were barley holding on and day to day living had become a real challenge for the first time in our young married lives. But by Mother’s Day of that year things had picked up and we were able to do those things DJ wanted. It had been a time when we were called upon to totally rely on one another and to develop a special trust that managed to carry us through some of the more trying situations we would face in the future. It could have been a time for blaming and recrimination, when she or I could have turned on the other; but that did not happen. Instead, together, we held firm and rallied. I can recall that year’s Mother Day just as clear today as when it actually took place; the girls standing on the porch, they being dressed in new outfits, our son in a crisp new suit as we prepared to meetup with other family members. That we were able to shop for that Mother’s Day had made DJ especially happy and I can remember being so relived that the storm we had been caught in had subsided. Thinking of all of this that first year had sent me reeling to that place where I believe the children have been trapped for the last few days and I know it’s no fun being there . But this and all of the rest of the things which contribute to our grief are not going away, not as long as we live. Trying to develop and understand how to live with it becomes the challenge I think. For me there are moments when everything appears crystalline, in focus, having such clarity that it is almost frightening; what has happened appears to be understood, a rational step by step approach leading to the final events can be grasped and the inevitable conclusion becomes expected and accepted. Then there are the times when everything appears confused and useless and seems to make no sense at all, when any attempt to place things in any perspective fails and what follows is panic and despair; times whenI am left to ponder just what is the purpose of it all and just how the hell does it matter anyway! Having no experience at charting a balance with these things, in order for us to try and move ahead, we are left to try this and make a best guess at that. At these moments we are challenged to move forward; when, while dealing with the remnant memories of not only our loved ones who have passed, but also that entire life we enjoyed with them which has also passed. We can be haunted by those events and times which are no longer, and those special moments we can never again have with them, right down to grieving the loss of an entire state of self; here is where the pain resides for me and where all the obstacles of making any sense of not only the world around me, but of me and my place in it also has to be faced.
Naturally, here, our level and measures of success are all, truly, relevant; this is much too personal for any grand, all encompassing coverall solution. It is my thought that we each come to whatever peace we may find solely because of our own efforts here and I think it’s only right since we individually have to have answers which only have to make sense to us and with which we can live. Those people and things which help and assist us along the way have their place, but our efforts in incorporating any benefits they may offer into our own Journey will determine just how we handle the trek. At times we can find the presence of others a bother, the quotes, mottoes and phrases can sound hollow and saturate us to the point of burnout and we are left to fend with whatever emotional reserves we can draw on. These are things which I often mention to our children, that it is a marathon, not a sprint; it is a Journey for life. Barring a serious head injury, we will not awake one day and not think about DJ; I don’t think there will be a time when we will suddenly say ‘Hey, I’m over it…’. It has become apparent to me that one of the costs of great caring and love is the pain which the lost of it brings; personally I have accepted that it should be like this, the dues must be paid. That doesn’t mean I like them, just that to me, it makes sense that it all should be there and therefore, like many other things in our life, it has to be dealt with; regarding this cost, it is one of the answers that I have made for myself and I am able to live with it.
So this third Mother’s Day without DJ is at once new and at the same time much like previous special days. The memories it generates and emotions released by their appearance change only in the way we perceive them I think. The pain which is there is the one constant for me, and evidently for our children too. Despite my own misgivings at times, I try to remain emotionally available for them and to understand that just as I sometimes feel no one can know the pain I feel, so they too must have the same thought. Accepting that it will always be this way in regards to DJ’s death can be hard to grasp at times, it’s the one thing which I think will always seem foreign to me, that she’s not here; then again, with her being in my every other thought, in a huge way she is always nearby. So, on we go...
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