The week I met my mother was, I now realize, also the week I met my new self. For all the fear, the worry, and the sadness of that week, I have never known such peace, calm and love… I carried many of those differing emotions inside me for months afterwards – always so very close to the surface that I felt constantly raw and fragile. I wish I had kept a diary for those precious, beautiful 8 days…for the two weeks beforehand, for the months afterwards. I felt so acutely aware of everything… So conscious of tiny details, comments, appearance, that I thought I’d remember every aspect forever, but of course that hasn’t happened, and I now find myself only able to remember a few details – and how I treasure those memories…
What is strange is that this new self reminds me of the person I was decades ago; the person who is capable and resourceful, who has ideas and dreams and sets about making them happen. That person had disappeared so very long ago, that I’d forgotten she existed.
That said, in the months following my parents’ burial I was none of those things. I was acutely aware of my own mortality, of being alone in the world, and the exhaustion, and the pain were so intense that I wanted to just curl up on top of their grave and sleep for eternity. Actually, on one particular day I DID fall asleep on their grave, and to this day I remember the wonderful sense of comfort I felt that afternoon. It was one of those milestones – of which there were many – and I relaxed enough to fall asleep in the spring sunshine, on a blanket – their blanket – on their grave. I had almost emptied their flat – the only things left were a few pieces of furniture and I was waiting for the removal firm to collect tem, to take them into storage. I had an hour or two to myself while they drove down to the Midlands from Yorkshire, so I braved the cemetery, found the grave, and talked to my Mother and Father. The sunshine was warm and despite being close to the city centre, that sunny spot felt a million miles from civilization, from “normal” life, from the living… Like in my Mother’s hospice room, I felt connected to the dead more than the living, and that comforted me.
So yes… I have become the me I used to be in my teens and my early 20s… Whether that was because of the death of my parents that Christmas, or reaching 50 just 10 days after their joint burial, I don’t know… I just know that mixed in with all the grief, the sense of horror, the absolute devastation I was feeling, there was a stronger me silently fighting upwards, unwilling to be suffocated by it all.
“I give you this to take with you:
Nothing remains as it was. If you know this, you can
begin again, with pure joy in the uprooting.”Judy Minty, Letters to My Daughters