Birth
Easter is upon us, the season of rebirth, renewal, resurrection. And while I am not feeling especially festive this year, I am certainly experiencing a sort of personal resurrection of the heart and mind. After all, they’ve been dormant since December 1, but I didn’t even know it. I tricked myself!
Delay, don’t avoid.
Mom took her life on December 1, the same day as my first all-day faculty interview where I would meet the Dean, Chair, faculty, present research, and tour the campus. Dad called me with the news at 0500. I went to that interview at 0800 and I got the job. On my drive home I returned phone calls, talked with family, and prepared to tell the girls that their Yaya was gone.
Delay, don’t avoid
I bought Christmas gifts, shopped for graduation clothes and planned getting together with far flung friends and mentors in NOLA. I cooked dinner, went to work, did the laundry, checked homework, decorated the tree. I played the role of wife, mother, and therapist, desperate not to let mom’s decision upend the girls’ holiday or our lives in general. Not yet.
And I was good.
Delay, don’t avoid
I told myself we knew this had been coming. Those in our family and her close friends — the ones who would listen — desperately feared it was only a matter of time. Despite repeated efforts to change medication, to have her hospitalized, despite a very good therapist and faith relationship with her priest, she did it. She had been trying to leave this realm for years and she achieved her goal with maximum impact, just in time for Christmas.
The mind is a strange thing. I’ll never forget sitting in a NOLA bar, post-graduation, when my friend Heather said, “Ashley, you can’t think your way out of this one”. Another friend, an expert in dialectical behavioral therapy, reminded me, “delay, don’t avoid”. As a clinician I knew they were right. As a human celebrating her hard earned doctorate I thought, challenge accepted! So we left the sparkly Christmastime dreamworld of NOLA before the sun on the morning of December 16, and made the long drive to Fayetteville.
Delay, don’t avoid
As we neared the tunnel on I-49 my sister called: they were positive for COVID and we needed a different hub for friends and family. I booked an AirBnB, my brother picked up dinner, and we threw together some family time the best we could with visiting relatives. I woke that night with a temp of 102. The flu. One day to recover before the service.
Delay, don’t avoid
The day before the funeral the Bishop asked us to delay the service due to sickness. As a family we made the difficult decision to close the service to all except for those who had already made the trip. Wearing masks, my brother and his family sat with daddy, there by his side where my sister and I longed to be. We sat with our families on the other side of the church, separated by rows of pews and lots of silence. The organist called in that morning with COVID.
Delay, don’t avoid
There was no post-service reception, no time to see friends and family, no time to reminisce or share the heavy burden of grief we were all feeling. Instead, we got into the car, changed out of our funeral clothes at a gas station, and headed home to have a merry fucking Christmas!
I have been living in limbo since that time. My new job, which I love, has begun, dance competition season is upon us, and very suddenly I find myself waking up to what feels like a bloodbath of pastel colors.
I fucking hate pastel colors.
I can feel them all over me. It’s like being covered in sticky, sweet Peeps, their seedy black eyes pleading with me to open mine. Clinging to me, desperate for attention, calling me out of my trance and into the horror of reality post-mom.
Delay, don’t avoid
So I find myself in this season of rebirth being reborn. My first mom, the one who carried me in her belly, severed ties three and a half years ago. You know that saying, you can’t ever go home again? It’s true. Too much water under the bridge, especially when that water is chock full of secrets and lies. When people are shamed into secrecy it hurts everyone.
And mom. Mom who longed for a family, who adopted three kids, who volunteered at every school function, who cooked delicious meals and planned beautiful parties. Mom with her Southern accent, big white hair, and generous spirit. Mom who suffered decades of chronic pain and opioid use. Mom who only wanted things to be nice and neat. She severed ties too. Not enough room for me with one mother; not of enough time to save the other.
Delay, don’t avoid
I find myself seeing the world through fresh eyes. There is a distinct before and after, and the me that existed before is gone, vanished the moment mom took her last breath. I don’t even know who I am anymore. I look at my reflection in the mirror and am astounded. How can I look the same when my heart is broken, turned to black, hard on the outside, filled with viscous rage and pain on the inside?
I don’t have the answer to that yet, but I am seeking myself in ways that are organic to me. I long for healing, for peace, and to claim my authentic self within this chaos. Like a baby giraffe learning to walk, I am giving birth to myself with prayer, reiki, communion with friends, family, and meditation. I don’t know what the future holds for me, but I am no longer asleep.
I am wide awake.
Help is available
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