The last day my mom was alive...I've been measuring so many of my days and doings now in time since then. She died at 3 pm on a Saturday, and that night I didn't want to go to sleep because I didn't want the last day she was alive to end. Let alone end with me going to sleep, as though it was any other day.
That Sunday was the first day she wasn't alive - the first day that held no part of her, no breath, no touch, no sight or sound. Most of what I did recalled no part of her. I went to brunch with my sister's friends, I went to a tattoo shop and got a new tattoo, I ate dinner from somewhere I'd never been. But these doings were book-ended by waking up and going to sleep in her house.
The first day I went back to work, I sat at my desk and realized that the last time I looked at my desk, got up from my chair, spoke to someone, she was alive. I had come so far over the weeks I was gone only to come back and realize that I had to pick up the doings of my life without her. I rearranged my desk, now I look out at the window instead of at the wall.
I drove home from work that first day back without calling her to talk about the previous weekend visit and drive home with the kids. That might have been when the thought of going forward without her felt the most hopeless. If I can't discuss my kids with my own mom, to hear her joy, perspective, advice, empathy, how can I face the next decades of parenting?
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