Reflections on the second anniversary of my mother’s death.
Two years
Today marks two years since my mum died. I feel I should mark it as, two weeks ago, I quietly marked two years since the last time I saw mum alive, her toothless grin shining through from her immobilising hospital bed.
No-one remembered on the first anniversary last year and no-one has remembered today. I don’t say that in a sort of passive-aggressive expectation of an outpouring of sympathy, not at all. In these awful times people already have quite enough to think about. As I’m often told, I’m a lot better off than most people. I should shut up about my minor ills and quibbles. No-one wants to hear.
It is said that grief lasts two years, at least. Several friends have lost parents in recent years and are still raw about it. Deep down I don’t think I’m doing it right because I felt not grief but relief at the death of both of my parents. I’m fully aware how bad that probably makes me sound. Perhaps there’s something wrong with me, some undeveloped no-go area in my empathy. I don’t think I’m actually callous but rather that my tenderheartedness is infused with piquant reality, that runs through it like hardened arteries through softly yielding flesh. Emotional brain vs rational brain.
It’s honesty. Both parents were debilitated in different ways towards the end. They were liberated by death. It horrifies me when I reflect on what my internationalist dad would have thought of Brexit; how my poor demented mother would have struggled through Covid lockdowns.
Physical and emotional distance from both parents at the time of their deaths can’t have helped me feel proper grief. Though I have tried hard to have more in common, more of a closer understanding, with my own children than with my parents, I fear that their lack of proximity will inevitably result in the same emotional distance between us. The thought stings.
Over the years I have numbed down, eroded by micro-aggression, the expectation of rationality, the putting aside of childish things, which explains my calmness at my own loss of my mother. Thoughts of her quirkiness make me smile and now overrule the raw, less pleasant memories. So let us now consider the two years marked and I’ll go ahead and delete this final email exchange. Enough now.
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It is perfectly ok to feel relief not grief at the death of a parent. Believe me.
You did everything right and are still doing it right. I’m glad that you can smile at her quirkiness and smile back at that wonderful grin.
With much love to you on your mother’s Year’s Mind. Xx
I know you get it. You usually do.
I know it’s my blog but I still feel awkward at sharing these personal thoughts. I have a relative who looks with horror at what I share. I feel vulnerable to rejection. But it has to go somewhere and currently there’s nowhere else. But I had to say something and maybe it was a good thing that I did.
Many of my relations were horrified at my lack of weeping, wailing and rending of clothes when my parents died. But my mum hadn’t been my mum for a couple of years. She had been whisked away by dementia and replaced by a harridan who exclaimed she had no daughter.
My dear father was 95 and beginning to detest what the country he loved had become. I know he knew I loved him but was glad to go. He said he had seen the best of this country and would be appalled by the Brexit divisions. We remember them with love and can smile at our memories and really that’s all we need in the end. Peaceful thoughts dear Gita. X
Identify very strongly with the relief rather than grief: my father died suddenly after heart attack – they lived in Snowdonia, miles from anywhere. My sister- lives in America – and I rushed down to her and she managed funeral bravely but fell ill two weeks later with diagnosis of liver cancer.
(My sister had gone back to US by then), but my wife and i brought Mum by ambulance to live with us (wife being cancer nurse. Within a week her condition was much worse and I sat with her last two days, holding her hand throughout last day. When she finally squeezed my hand and stopped breathing I felt enormous relief for her. They had been very close couple and the thought that she had left behind both grief and pain was such deep happiness that I felt gratitude, not grief. No tears and never have (big mistake, there tho, I think). I was so blessed to have the farewell hours with her, but stiff sniff a bit at disytant memories. Rod.
Thank you for sharing this personal memory. But I’m interested: why is no tears a mistake? Did you have tears but suppress them or just had no tears? In which case, you can’t force it. Be kind to yourself, I’d say. X