Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

I was sad to read, just now, that your mum had died. Age is an irrelevance; your mummy died. You're still her wee girl, and she's still your mammy. I'll be lost whenever mine goes...although, chances are, I'll beat her to that finish line.

My dad's wife died a few weeks ago (complications from diabetes) and, he's lost, man, so lost. On the day of the funeral he was like a kid. A particular kind of kid... a kid that sneaks whisky, thinking no one noticed... I was on standby for coffin bearing duty, just in case... but he managed it.

It's broken him. Changed him!

A few years ago (you may remember on Facebook, I sent a private message...) my gran died. I was so close to that woman, you wouldn't believe (not sexually...she wouldn't have it!). When she died, finally!!! (It was a horrible, prolonged thing!) I felt stabbed in the chest, and experienced my second ever heartbreak (the first being when my mum's younger brother, my uncle, died, whom I was very close to also...again, not sexually...this time, I wouldn't allow it)... And... I wondered about my weakness... what's wrong with me? with us? That this inevitability holds such shock!? My gran, my dad's mum, died after a lot of problems, and some really depressing issues towards the end of her life...she became a shell...and me, the atheist, the understander of the futility of us, looked at her and seen a longing for death... so I managed to make my peace with her eventual goodbye...even though it still ripped me apart. I really loved that woman. But... and I don't often start a sentence with but... But, my dad, a real, as we say, "mammy's boy", was distraught. Lost.

We all knew she was dying... for months it was "when" rather than "maybe"... but, her death still broke us.

I don't know why I wrote that, Doreen... I think because you said "she was 98..." and that should someone dampen any shock... It doesn't.

What was your mum like? What was "her thing"? I hope your family and friends are around you when you need them just now, woman. I hope you're well. xx

Bennie... everyone handles death of a loved one differently. I'm still getting over the deaths from last year (Clay, Bobby, several more people I knew). I'm very sorry for your losses. I don't know how people do it. I need to go on and live but I don't have much of a life right now. I was in a major car accident and can't work because of my back injury. I have no income and now my mom died and every day I wake up sick on my stomach. I'm just pitiful. But I'll be OK. If someone could teach me how to understand mortality, I would be grateful. I don't understand death. I have a much more difficult time with accepting it than any other person I know. Thank you for your kind caring spirit.

Someone just wrote on facebook "she is happier where she is now" but my question is... where is she now? Is she anywhere? That's the part I don't get. Is she just gone? Or is she somewhere? Do you believe in heaven? What do you think happens to people after they die? Nothing? Or something? Where do they go? Anywhere or nowhere?

the questions
I continue to ask
inside my head
shaping up

the scenes
trying to avoid
the end
where you are dead.

Dadio

where are you dead
a question for quantum physicists or poets I suppose.
perhaps a neuro-theologian could answer

thank you for writing,
for reaching out
for asking such honest questions

I can tell you this much

"we are of the stars for all eternity"

Henry Miller from memory

and we are as holy as stars or paperclips

"I know / there is / perfection in the being / of my being, / that I am holy in amness / as stars or / paperclips

A. R. Ammons: "God Is the Sense the World Makes without God."

Doreen, my thoughts and best wishes go out to you. I am sorry for your loss. This is something I've been through recently, and I know how much it hurts.

Jack.. thanks for the quotes.

Mark... thank you. I know you recently experienced the same and I send again my condolences. You're right. It isn't easy. It's just ... this weird type empty feeling I can't explain. But you understand.

I'm sure all of you who have lost your parents understand.

Every person handles grief differently, I imagine.

Over fifty years ago for my dad, and thirty for my mom, what I remember was was a numb nothing feeling, an emptiness.

with time it went away, and I could start to feel again.
I am just grateful I had siblings to share my grief with me.
besides this life of mine my siblings were another
precious gift from my parents.

Doreen, I hope your back problems get better. I occasionally have trouble with my back, too.
Hopefully, the insurance company gave you a good settlement on the wreck, so that you may get to go to physical therapy, etc. May "the Force" be with you... Thinking of you...

You are right about different people handling grief differently, I think sons handle it different from daughters. In my family there seems to be so much anger and guilt between the generations of mothers and daughters, going back to my grandmother at least. I tell my sister it is never too late to feel a mother's love. I live for the day when my sister will make peace with her mother.

Sorry to get so personal, I have been fascinated by mother daughter relaitonships since I read the Bell Jar forty years ago.

I love this bit Maureen Dowd wrote for her mother. I spent some time looking at your family photos and for some reason I feel like it describes your mom too.

prayers sent