As each birthday looms close, I often think of death.



Morbid, I know, and this year is no exception: I'm turning 30, a landmark, and my mother just died last week, also a landmark.

When I was about 4 or 5, my mother gave me a piece of advice, which while at the moment seemed puzzling and preposterous, became a huge pillar of wisdom in my adult life.  She said,  "Sometimes you have to laugh at the things in life that make you want to cry the most."

While our last real conversation was humorous, I don't think I'll ever laugh at this situation.
So instead, I'll write about it.

My mom was diagnosed with cancer over a year ago. Her cancer was like one of those games at Chucky Cheese where you'd smash down the lumps with a big mallet, only for another lump or 2 to pop up in a different location. No matter how much you smashed, they'd just pop back up somewhere else.

For the longest time and through all the various treatments and hospitalizations, she kept a positive disposition.

As positive as she was, I still found myself with a lump in my throat when I heard my coworkers talk about their children and fumbling for my sunglasses when my eyes teared up upon noticing a stranger who resembled her even in the slightest. The worst was when I attended my friend Bari's bridal brunch and broke into great gasps and sobs, touched by her soon-to-be mother-in-laws declarations of motherly love for her.

My mother and sister's positive disposition made me feel as if they were all trying to trick me.
By the age of 29 I had already lost 1 friend to cancer and known 3 that had been diagnosed with some serious form or another before their mid 20s.

Thoughts of her cancer gnawed away at my insides and rubbed my emotions raw.
Things that were fun suddenly weren't as fun anymore and I found myself pushing harder and harder to have fun.
Any distraction was at least some distraction-whether it was good or somewhat self-destructive.

When I was a teenager, it was out of both morbidity and anxiety that I would lay  awake in my bed and think about my parents dieing.
I'd lay awake in the darkness and quietly work myself into tears at the thought.

When it came (because it would), how would I be able to breathe if they could not breathe?
Would I really be able to eat if they could not eat? Could I ever really feel happy if they could not feel anything?



I thought of this right after my mom died last week. It was 3 hours after she took her last shuddering breath.
It was 3.5 hours after I had laid in the hospital bed beside her and kissed her bald head and held her hand and told her all of the important things you only admit to a parent as they are dieing.

And then I ate a piece of cake.
And I kind of hated myself for it.

I sat scowling at family friends that I hadn't seen in years and didn't want to see that day of all days.
My nose was snotty and and my face was streaked with eye makeup.

I was kind of hungry and kind of just not wanting to talk to any of them, so I reached for the cake.
As I chewed on that bready sweetness, I also chewed on my own guilt.

Grief works in mysterious ways-paralyzes some and humbles others...can be the source of great creation or great destruction...a motivation or a darkness.
For me, it is all of these things-a roller coaster like no other. 

I'm up and down although I hear it gets better.

Today after work, with plans to check out a new "secret" bar, The Roger Room, in the evening, I raced home to throw together the songs for my moms memorial service this weekend.

After downloading the ones my sisters suggested, I found we were half an hour short or so. 
An hour later, I was blubbering over the Carpenters and the Beatles and canceling plans.

Damn, I had been doing pretty good for the last few days, too!

She is gone.
My Creator. My Teacher. My Protector.

Death is part of life, but I still feel as if part of me is gone-devoured by loss.



I am the kind of girl, who even at 30, still needs a mother.
No matter how much I distanced myself emotionally or physically, I still needed her.
Her reassurance, her motherly disapproval, and over the past few years her commiseration of single life.

I look into the mirror and I see her face in my own refection.
Most moments of joy are quickly humbled by the sharp and overwhelming stab of sadness.

It won't completely go away, I know.
There will be time like yesterday when I reached for my phone and had a flash of "I should call mom and see how she's doing" and then I will feel a pain of idiocy and sadness.

Still, with time I know the pain will slowly scab over.