Day 5 Prompt

Personification of my grief

My grief is a ghost. He, yes he, because my grief for some reason feels masculine, he flits in and out of view. It is a haunting, somehow ever present - like when you are in a hallway and swear that you saw something out of the corner of your eye or when I was a little girl and ran down the stairs from the second floor to the first because the long hallway behind me as I descended scared me so.

I'm not comfortable with him. My mind sets itself to practical matters, but he whispers that he's still here, waiting until I'm ready. Some days he feels like Casper; other times the heaviness which he drapes over me is crushing.

He reminds me of moments to try and drag me into his realm. Remembering giving mom morphine the first time. Helping with her catheter. Taking care of it, helping her with her constipation from the meds, her utter weakness. I believe the haunting began then - when mom had a fall and went downhill so fast it was almost breathtaking. It would have been breathtaking if I had taken a step back to see what was going on instead of being in constant caregiver mode.

I felt grief's full presence when the funeral director came to take mom away. I didn't want to leave her side. She died around 6:30 am. I think. It may have been 8:30. I'll have to ask my husband. It's a bit of a blur. My warning was when her death rattle suddenly, inexplicably, stopped.  I had laid down in mom's room, about 15 feet from her hospital bed at 2:00, hoping to get a few hours rest. Something woke me at 4:30. Perhaps it was my new companion, grief, coming to usher me into my new reality.

I was restless and checked on mom, straightening her covers. She was fully unconscious. I can't remember when she had last closed her eyes and didn't open them. That makes me cry now. I can't remember. I have notes I kept on my phone. I can't bear to read through them yet. When I can, I will then know the timeline. We have two adult children and one teenager in the house with my husband and me, yet I felt what I was doing was so solitary. I was fixated on mom, living in her en suite, forgetting there was a whole world "out there" beyond our suffering.

Mom's skin was terribly dry. I was appalled at how it would just flake off her body. Clouds of it, it seemed, when she moved, for about a month or so prior to her death it was quite bad. So while I was restless I decided to lotion her feet. And since I was there, I clipped her toenails because I'd never felt up to offering to do it when she was cognizant. I lotion end her hands and arms and scalp, talking with her quietly. My response but her harsh breath in the quiet of the room, the vile swishing of the oxygen tank filling every corner of our space. Perhaps grief came to help me through what he knew  was going to be the hardest thing ever.

Her dying ... That wasn't so awful. It barely felt final. The finality came when something made me say to the funeral director "no, I'll stay" and he respectfully said "of course" and he and his assistant began moving mom to their gurney. What did I think was going not happen? The reality of the situation finally smacked me awake. I watched in true horror as they slowly moved the cover up her body. I felt a vast wound opening in my chest. Grief crying out. I'm grateful for that grief because it enabled me to croak out the words "wait" just as he was going to lay the covers over mom's face.

He respectfully lowered the blanket again so that I could kiss mom goodbye. I don't know where that courage came from, but I'm so grateful it came.

In that moment I believe the shocked state I'd been operating under since diagnosis in December faded and He came to stay. My grief. My own companion. Perhaps he is a kind grief who is doling out the emotions slowly, only giving me what I can manage. Sometimes he knows I need the emotional release of a torrent of emotions, ones that knock me off my feet. He guides me to self care and reminds me to be gentle with myself. And he gives me the ability to smile even with a bittersweet edge, to remember the wonderful life mom and I had together. Yes, He came to stay and he is as complicated a ghost as I've ever known.