Yanked

Pulled umbilical
Mother yanking back from death
unique agony.


A friend has just lost his mother. Her age and illness aside, as this changes less than one would think. Oh, it's worse when a younger mother dies suddenly - the shock, but there is a certain minimum of grief that still overwhelms and must run its course. I have a sense of what he might be going through. My own experience is on this spectrum of grief. It's not the same as the immense relief when my father died, and even that was damned odd. Nor it is at all the loss when Aunt Evelyn died, and I still miss talking with her, wanting to invite her into my house, still cry occasionally. With my mother, my body seemed to feel her death, and still does, even as my head and heart stood by looking embarrassed and awkward, unable to explain.

That incongruity makes it worse, even as the absence of loss and regret make it easier.