Grief

Last week, mostly unexpectedly, but by her choice, my mother died. She was 71, going on 72 in June. She loved her grandchildren, and her children. I miss her so much. The grief is so raw, it's an effort not to cry all the time.

The hardest part? Everything said and unsaid, done and undone. Mistakes we both made. Someone told me 'you don't get to live a perfect life. You will make mistakes, and that has to be OK". I guess it's that human thing--we're human, we make mistakes, we suffer, but we also have the chance to experience great joy.

I wish I had let her in more. I wish she had let me in more. We had a complicated relationship, and I'm feeling the irony of realizing only now, that she's gone, how similar we were. Perhaps that would have helped me to get closer to her, perhaps not.

I am trying very hard not to torture myself with regrets. Times when I didn't pay attention to her, times when I brushed her aside. She was a challenging person to be with and I had so many mixed emotions, mostly left over from childhood, to contend with. I could never make it easy, it always had to be so comlicated. We both had high expectations for what a mother and daughter should be, and we never met each other's expectations. Once in a while, she was just there for me. Once in a while, I would let her in without leaving hoops to jump through in the way.

I feel anchorless and lost.