My mum died 11th October ’16. It’s been exactly one year.
It’s weird because I’ve been dreading this day for months. I thought it was going to be an emotionally-fuelled, cathartic day, one which pulls you to the centre of any field to reminisce, weep, write a sentimental letter and possibly have a glass of G&T in her honour.
I’ve felt nothing like that. But perhaps it’s because I’m pushing the day’s morbid significance deep, deep down into a small nook, that will only begin to boil over when the clock hits that darkest point of night.
I can’t tell you what’s happened since then. Not a single event. Life is just a blip now, and not to sound depressing but everything that happens (good or bad) has lost its power. Good things seem good, though no longer as amazing as they were when she was alive, and the bad just seem bad, though not horrific. All the colourful adjectives have wilted, so that all that remains in the world is ‘good’ and ‘bad’.
You can’t get any better or worse from ‘good’ and ‘bad’ – if that makes any sense. All the ‘good’ memories I’ve had this year are all an underwhelming ‘good’. Winning the lottery or getting engaged would be good for a moment, or two, before the feeling dies as quick as it came. That may seem ungrateful but a large chunk of myself died with her, and that little part of me is the very least I can give.
All of life’s colours have bled out slightly, faded like those jeans you’ve had for years. Food tastes the same but olives no longer hold that magic, our favourite nibble. Now they taste of nothing, just balls of rubber rolling around my mouth. The world continues to move on without you though because, after all, the universe is oblivious.
Wars continue, politicians continue to plot, celebrities continue to breed, but the one headline that really gets to me is how cancer is (cruelly) getting closer to the cure. I know it’s deranged and horrible to hold those thoughts after reading about a new discovery; a fleeting surge of spiteful thinking and an abrupt belly-drop punctuates each one.
If you had been diagnosed a year after, they would have known that successive bouts of chemo spread the dreaded cells like wildfire, to your vital organs (your poor liver) or other parts of your body (they found another lump but I didn’t want to tell you because you were on your graduation trip). Those headlines will forever taunt me.
Dad has just received a ‘generous pension’ which means that he’s reached that milestone that we all aspire to: retirement. I was so proud of him but I couldn’t hold back the burning tears. I’m glad he’s finally able to put his work behind him but if you had lived a year longer you would also be reaping in the rewards. You would both have flown to France and marveled at the vines beginning their cycle of re-birth and spent the afternoon crunching along a carpet of golden leaves, all in the comfort of your jungle-garden.
It’s in the 20’s now so you would be wearing a black v-neck sweater, your diamond sitting perfectly where the two perpendicular lines meet, complete with a black gilet. When the weather turns cold, a woodburner would be the heart and soul of the house, both of you huddled together, reading or eating or watching re-runs of Downton Abbey. Actually no, you’d be scrolling through the internet for news or potential careers that you always tried to push on to me, because you were always haunted by that awful feeling of underachievement.
A colourful pile of Alexander McCall Smith novels would sit next to your bed, your hair ablaze with the soft glow of the lamp and the room would hold that sweet smell of your Clinique moisturizer. I miss coming in to your room late at night, sitting at the bottom of the bed, and talking about anything and everything.
There are many things I regret, particularly the spiky words I attacked you with. We’re meant to eventually forgive ourselves for those dark moments because that’s how the process goes. But I feel like there has been no process, there is simply white and black, lightness and dark: you were there and then you were gone.
There are many things I wish I could add here but the pain is too masked, too deep, that I can’t seem to hook on to it and extract it from my body, up through the throat, along my tongue until it pours out of my trembling lips. Losing you has been the most horrific and loneliest experience. I’m now in the first year of my second life. A plain, beige one where love only comes to me weakly and experiences come diluted. Some could argue that it’s a life not worth living.
****
I miss you and love you, and I’m holding on to your already grainy image like my life depends on it.
swirlygirl* 