A year ago today I lost my mother. I have always intended to sit down and write about it but can never find the courage, the energy or even the words. I think the words are really the hardest.
I sit here now and wonder how everything got to this point. How my mom can be dead? Selfishly I wonder how she can be gone when there was never any closure for us. Our relationship was never easy and at times it was non exsistant. I thought we were just starting to work towards something and then she was gone.
You see my mother did not simply pass away, she wasn’t cancer ridden or ill, she wasn’t old, it wasn’t even necessary. She was sick though and in the end that’s what killed her.
It was a Tuesday and I had decided to take a nap (shocking I know). I laid the babies down and grabbed a blanket to take a quick snooze on the couch. I was still snoozing when my son came home from school. I talked to him for a few minutes and then grabbed my phone to see if I missed any calls. I had, 5, to be exact. Everyone one of them was from my Aunt. I knew then something was wrong. Mostly I was concerned for my grandfather, he is 83 years old and hasn’t got the best heart and had a tumor in his brain removed a few years ago. I immediately called my Aunt back after I sent my son downstairs.
The next few minutes of that day are forever burned into my memory. It was like seeing myself from above. I returned the call, preparing myself for news of my grandpa. When my Aunt answered I could tell that she had been crying and knew the news was way bad.
“Grandpa?”, I asked.
“No honey, your Grandpa is fine. Jill your mom, your mom is dead.” Came my Aunt’s reply, her voice sounding like she could barely form the words.
I swear every bone in my body became liquid at that moment, and I slid right off of the couch. My chest felt like it was being ripped open and pieces of me splintered and broke. Physically it hurt, so much. I just kept repeating my Aunt’s name over and over and over, like a question. Getting louder each time. Waiting for the answer to be different.
The answer remained the same, it still hasn’t changed and it won’t, my mother is gone.
Today I start this story, for me, I am sharing because I have difficulty expressing myself out loud. My hope is when this is finished maybe I will heal and find some peace. That I will be able to write the feelings that I can’t make my mouth form.
The one thing that I am sure of is that my mother is happier now and at peace. A peace she was never able to find here in life.
But I was robbed of the closure that I still so seek.
You see my mother died on Tuesday January 6, 2010 during a police chase that resulted in injuries to others and ended with the car she was driving wrapped around a tree. While I was napping.
