One Year Later

I can’t explain why but it seemed impossible to me that my mom would pass away on New Year’s Eve. Although she had been in hospice for about five weeks now and they had told us at the hospital she had between two and four weeks left, and I knew she would pass any one of those days, it still didn’t cross my mind that New Year’s Eve would be that day. So when I left her hospice room on December 30, I said goodnight and told her I would see her on New Year’s Day. I had my plans for New Year’s Eve: I was going to go to hot yoga. I was going to get a blow out. I was going to a bar with my friends. I was going to meet up with the guy I was dating. I was going to pretend, for at least one day, that the world was not closing in on me. But New Year’s Eve, in most ways, is still a day like any other. And people die every day, so.

Obviously New Year’s Eve is a day to reflect on the year that passed and plan for the year ahead (#duh) but now, for me, New Year’s Eve isn’t just your regular “out with the old, in with the new” it’s a reminder that I’m starting another year without my mom. After she passed away, my family friend said to me that grief doesn’t go away, but it “finds its place.” And for me, I still don’t know what that place is yet, exactly. I will say that after she first died, looking forward to things felt impossible; I spent a lot of time just going through the motions of my life because what else was there to do; and I could barely even look at pictures of my friends or acquaintances with their moms. Mother’s Day? Yes, I Logged Off. Every time I learned that someone passed away, I did the mental math in my head: How much older were they than my mom? How many more years did they get?

Slowly (very slowly) but surely: I started looking forward to stuff again. It was just BoJack Horseman coming back, but hey it counts. I stopped just trying to get through each day and for the first time since before my mom was hospitalized in August 2018, started thinking more about my life and what I want out of it. I quit my job of eight years. I can now look at pictures of my friends with their moms and maybe even fave one or two. If someone tells me they are “literally dying” I do my absolute best not to correct them.

The closest thing I could liken it to is being at the eye doctor and your vision starts off blurry and then the doctor changes the lenses so you can see the letters clearer and clearer. (I’m not using this analogy because I just went to the eye doctor last week, but full disclosure, I did just go to the eye doctor last week.) I spent most of this last year in a fugue state, not really being able to see, but each day gets a little clearer.

The grief is still impossible. I still miss my mom. I still wish I could talk to her and get her advice. I hear her voice in my head everyday. When I see a girl around my age walking around the neighborhood with her mom, I feel a pang knowing that we can’t do that anymore.

One of the most important things I learned this year is that my life will never look the same as it did before. I have to build a new one. It’s finding its place.