We’re fast approaching the holiday season and this will be my first without my mother. Even Halloween is usually spent helping my mother prepare costumes for my nieces and nephews and then watching B movies with her late into the night. And it was last fall that her illness really began to progress rapidly so every day that is increasingly autumnal feels like an unwanted anniversary. Regardless of seasonal change I think of my mother daily, but these days inky images of my own anticipatory loss, anxiety, and my mother’s deteriorated state are laid over diurnal remembering. And I wait with fear as the Christmas season approaches, wanting to start happily afresh with my new mini-family (my husband and I) but afraid I am unable to dam gushing grief. I don’t want this time of year to come around, when I have to remember and relive (what i hope remains to be) the worst season of my life.
But mostly, it always comes back to this simple fact: I miss my mother. I can promise you that you don’t know what missing is until you meet this wrenching and final loss.