ayla zaire

this is not a topic typical to newcomers.........i could have posted it on the grief forum, but i wanted to reach more people......and i apologise in advance for the length of this post......if you don't have 5 minutes to read it, i won't be offended........but i had to say these things........and i needed someone to hear me.....

my mother is dead......she has been gone for nine months.......

while she was sick i was fine......i was strong and capable and i cared for her, our home(which had to be hospital sanitary due to her chemo) she had lung cancer......she did not once get a cold in spite of her lowered immune system and three children in the house.......her medications, all 27 or so of them, were given to her at the exact time and iin the exact order as they were prescribed.........she never spoke to her doctors, filled out paper work, worried about a bill, set an appointment, or fixed a meal.......i took care of her and everything else........i sat down with my son and helped him with his homework each night.....read books to my children, and cooked 6 meals a day......three for my children and three for my mother, who was unable to eat the same foods as the kids......i visited the hospital emergency room more times than i can count, and politely endured condescending doctors who made snide comments about the marijuana and alcohol they found in my mothers system, while my mother lay beside me with her sodium depleted so low, that she no longer knew my name......she couldn't speak, and she wore a small, terrified smile.......she knew what was happening around her, but she was trapped inside of herself........i sat by her side for 2 days straight while she wore that same smile after the doctors sent her home, saying that she was drunk and high and that was her only problem......she did not eat.....she did not go to the bathroom, and she did not speak.......i didn't sleep for those 2 days, and i finally outed my mother as an alcoholic to her doctors and had her placed in a nursing home for a month and a half........

those are just some of the things i went through during the 11 months she was ill.......

but there was joy.....and a peace i can not explain......except to say that it was divine........i cherished each moment with her.......watching her put makeup on my little girl........read a book to aidan......laugh at something chase said.....smile at me......hug my husband....watching her sleep like i do my own children.......our roles had reversed and i was the mother and she was my child......and i felt a mother's love for her.........we laughed and i sang to her when she was in pain.......which, blessedly was not often at all, until the final two weeks of her life........i did not mourn her.......i did not accept that she was dying.....i refused to give up hope.......and so did she........we were mother and daughter, sisters, friends........we gave each other strength............we talked.......we said all of the things we needed to say.........and sometimes we sat in silence, just happy that we were together.........

and then she stopped eating........and got very ill, very fast........one day she was strong and miraclusly healthy.....and two weeks later she was gone.....it all happened so quickly, which i see as a gift........she truly did not suffer like you would think someone with a terminal disease would......

she died, and i was fine.......i made arrangements for her cremation and her memorial service........i dealt with her insurance company.........i entertained my entire family here in my home, but, blessedly my family is full of women.....and a scattering of fantastic men......and they all pulled together and relived much of my burden......and my husband was my strength.....and i was still fine........we had a party for her which is what she had wanted, and i left with my brothers and their friends, who are like brothers to me, to go sing......and i felt so proud walking in the place with all of my favorite men dressed in suits and looking so hansome.......and i while my close friend kyle played guitar, i sang for my mother.........

it took two months for grief find me.......and when it did, i was not fine anymore.......i was high all of the time.....my house was a wreck, my family miserable and my marriage falling apart........i was completely isolated, wrapped in a cocoon of drugs and grief.........i did not sleep, i didn't eat.....i drank my mothers ensure, sometimes i felt i was suffocating.......

i did not feel her with me........where her love for me had been there was only a void......a terrible emptiness........she was truly gone from me and i was losing my mind.......i felt very much as if i would never recover.....that it could never get better........and if one more person told me she was in a better place and always lived in my heart i was going to bash them in the head with a frying pan.........i heard at least 10 times a day that time would make it better, that i needed to move on, be strong for my family, pray for peace and remember the good things........and i wanted to tell them all to pi$$ off.......that their mothers were still breathing and they had not an inkling of what i was going through........i wanted to tell them to get out of my life and ask them where the hell they were when i didn't leave the house for three months because i could not leave my mother alone, she was not strong enough to function on her own........i wanted to tell them all to get out of my life, i didn't need their sympathy.......didn't want it.......and that they made me sick for abandoning my mother while she was ill.......and for leaving me alone to take care of her all by myself.........i hated them and their sympathetic, sorrowful looks they gave me.........and i thought sympathy cards, which arrived for months after her death were the lowest form of cruelity.......a beautiful card that said 'guess what? your mother is DEAD and you couldn't save her, all of your prayers and hope were worthless, because your mother is DEAD..."

i posted on sr my story, and my dear friend scootin babe sent me a private message that said the only way through grief is to face it head on, feel it, and someday i would come out on the other side.......and i felt a small amount of hope at her words........

so i faced my grief.....i got clean......and i felt it for many terrible months.......

but i am here to tell you that there is, in fact another side of grief.........where grief is an ache instead of an all consuming pain.....where i can smile and not think that i shouldn't smile because my mother is dead.......where i can feel her love for me......where i can think of her and smile at how ditzy she was and all of the funny things she said......where i can tell my children the stories she told me over and over again......of her life and my childhood......where i can love my mother and know for certain that she is still with me.......she is an impershible part of me......

there is another side of grief.....and my friend was right......if you face it, feel it and allow yourself to live it......you will come out.......you are a new person.....scarred and wary........but you are a little freer, and very much wiser........you are a woman without a mother......and you are still not fine....your house may still be a wreck and your children just a little out of control.......dinner may come out of a box and you may not be sleeping well yet......your marriage may be healing slowly, or not at all........but you are still alive.....you are still here.....you have survived.........