8 Comments

God, the second guessing..! Its rough. I'm both amazed and not amazed you're able to write all this. It's so much to think/feel. sometimes writing feels like a release of the dam. Sorry about yr mom❤️

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Thank you, Lisa. Yes, I think it's been something that's been building up, maybe over years. Hoping it can continue, in whatever form.

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May your mom's memory be a blessing, James. I'm so sorry for your loss.

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Thank you, Jenn. I appreciate that.

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"I’m still in bed, at my parents’ house—I guess, technically now, my father’s. (That’s the other thing that has been hard: words. Language. Morphing possessives..."

It took me years to untangle all of the language after my mom died. Not that I wasn't ready to let her go. She suffered for a long time and her death was, in a way, relief. But the forces of habit are a so strong. In a way, I grew to kind of like it over the years.

If I may offer a bit of unsolicited information: people love to say that losses get easier with time. That's bullshit. They don't get easier. We just become expert in the management of sadness.

I'm sorry for your loss. Sending you and yours love, James.

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Thanks for your note, Michael. I tend to agree with what you suggest. And perhaps there's something, too, in trying to appreciate being *able* to feel the loss too. That there still aren't things we've learned to manage. And then we learn, and then life throws some new difficulty our way and we have to learn how to manage that too.

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Yep. It's a never-ending education. To your point of appreciating it; you're right on. There are times when I experience a new pang in relation to my mother and, in a strange way, it brings me joy if for no other reason than I'm thinking about her.

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A beautiful sentiment, Michael. I have to keep it in mind when these pangs arrive, as I have no doubt they will.

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