Unburial
cw: this whole post is going to orbit around the death of a parent, a mother specifically. If you're not in a spot to rock with that, go ahead and skip this one, but if that sounds fine, go nuts. This is probably gonna be less a blog than a straight up journal entry.
We lost my mom 10 days ago. It feels more recent than that, but I imagine time going screwy is a constant in the immediate aftermath of a loss: bereavement time kicks off if available, you now have a small window to orchestrate a litany of tasks if the loss was fairly unplanned (as this one was), and you still need to remember to shower and move your body while digging through parts of a home that have remained untouched for years. And that's before acknowledging the caring arms of loved ones offering you kind messages of support and pre-cooked meals. It's overwhelming and unshackled from time; Amaryl and I said that everything "felt like being on vacation, but for something bad."
It also leaves you with a weird lack of time to actually, like, grieve. I've been able to find moments of quiet where my shoulders surrender a bit of their load to gravity and I can feel my breathing pattern change, but those moments have been stowed between choosing the petitions to read at Mass or texting my mom's brother and sister about what room I think their father's service flag is. But it's not like the grief is in absentia during those times; I've felt it pull me toward indecision or gather around my feet and slow me, and all I can do is pick the petition about those suffering unjustly or in pain of mind and body or suggest they check my old bedroom that because the shit-catcher room. And while I have so much of my community that's offered to or even just stepped in to help (to say nothing of how amazing Amaryl's been for this, my God), there's been what feels like a neverending to-do that keeps trying to get in the way of the thought that comes to me in quiet of "I miss my mom."
The first time I acutely missed my mom during all this is when I grabbed my phone to text her on our way out what a dick I thought the funeral home director was and realized I couldn't. We had that kind of relationship late in life, and by not being able to talk about the ways we'd bitch about something together or the hell the geography Jeopardy categories put us both in, I've been remiss in describing her via the faith remembrance (watch it here) and recitation of an obituary. Mom and I could talk about the real shit, and we could be pop culture junkies together, and our ability to thread that needle was due in large part to how much work we did in the last half decadeish to get there. As much as I've talked about my mom's faith as a boon, it could also be a barrier. It's not like she'd had a ton of exposure to trans people prior to my coming out, but things like her priests telling her it would be a sin to refer to me as Audrey didn't make that part of the process any easier. I remember seeing how much it hurt her to tell me that, and see me hurt in return as we talked about the unfairness of it and the difficulty involved. That was in either November or December. She had to handwrite or hand paint our gift tags for Christmas that year, and she addressed all of mine as, well:
She always tried. When I was a junior in high school, I went on the Kairos retreat (sigh, IYKYK), which ends with a big, cumulative celebration involving the attendants' families. This was all up in West Chester in 2008, and my Deer Park-centric mom considered it an odyssey to venture beyond the closer reaches of Sharonville. The celebration started, she wasn't there, and I'd resigned myself to her not being there. Mom's life as a working single parent often necessitated she not be there so that the power and roof would; I'd gotten used to it. All of us are in this big, giggly circle suddenly in the arms of our families after 3 days cloistered together, and someone's at the door. I hear the chorus of a familiar set of keys. I see her hurry in, hectic and harried about missing the start, but there nonetheless when I hadn't expected it, and before I could think, I was a child again and said, "That's my mom."
My uncle said that when his mom died, he lost a piece of him. For me, I don't think that's the case, but I feel like I've lost a tether to a way of life that was familiar. It's unclear if I'll ever get it back, but I named this entry "Unburial" because I want to be more present and thoughtful again. So yes, it may still take me a while to answer your messages or come to your events, but I'm trying to let the despair go one day at a time.
