2014, the year of mom's demise

One thing that long~time readers will have noted is that I tell on myself.  I very rarely knowingly lie about myself because the truth is far stranger than fiction and I figure that if I keep it real, then there is no one that can honestly say that they didn't know what they were getting when I showed up to the proverbial party.  Usually early.  Sometimes hours early.  With a vegetable tray that no one else will eat, thus ensuring that my husband will have noshing bits for the next week.  There truly is a method to my madness, no matter how trivial it may seem to others.

So while I do realize that it has been almost a year since I last posted here, there were several reasons for that.  Some of which I may hit on, here or in future posts; it depends on relevancy and timing, I'd say.  Thanks for welcoming the return of a rather errant writer of sorts.

First off, I won't be able to recap this past year in a way that will capture everything...so just accept that.  I can hit on a few things, but I'll try to keep it fairly light, and not dwell, dwell, dwell...altho I will want to, I won't; I need to move on.  Having said that, understand that there will be times when I dwell, and that's ok.  I'll do that if it helps me to move thru this next part and get on with things.  Seems contradictory, but ya know how these things work.

The long and short of it was that 2014 brought lots of heartrending tears, most of which were not actually wept then, but are now.  Here is the thing:  my mother died on Friday December 5th 2014.  It was a long, exhausting year that didn't seem quite as long or nearly as exhausting at the time as it does now, looking back.

Second, grief is a weird thing.  It grows arms and legs and tentacles and teeth, both mad sharp incisors and dull painfully grinding molars; but mostly it becomes a parasite that takes over and dissolves all my social filters.  On a regular basis, it turns out, also noted by looking back ~~ cuz hindsight can be perfectly crystal.

When my mom died, I was relieved for her; we'd spent most of November in the hospital, after she'd been through one thing after another all year long.  Stents, meds, open~heart double coronary arterial bypass graft surgery, etc., nothing was working the way it was supposed to and nothing was slowing down the rate at which her heart was failing.  When she began to die in earnest, Mom was ready, it was time.  She died on her own terms, which is really the only way to go; isn't it?

So it isn't her death that I'm grieving.  It's her absence in my life now that sucks the very marrow of my presence into the horrible vacuum of grief.  Quite often, I do not realize how awfully devastated I am until after I've done something that reflects the complete and utter absence of my social filters.

In some cases, most actually, this is actually pretty funny.  If not at the time, later I realize there were some very humorous aspects and elements involved, which give the entire situation a rather unique pithy, yet witty, tone.  It's good that I can appreciate that, because there are those who most certainly cannot {ew}  nor do not.  Because they are simply not built that way.  But I am.  It's almost as tho I am rediscovering who I am exactly.  Some of which is not pretty, some of which is rather bitter, and some of which is downright wretched.

But that is all part of me, of who I am.  And ya know, I embrace that; if for no other reason than the fodder for the grist mill that in part makes up the totality of me.