April 8, 2002

  • It’s been almost a year and a half now; the earth is still spinning, stocks, tides, and foreign relations still rise and fall. The future is still just as uncertain, the past still as poignant and painful, and the present still as mundane and bewildering at times as it ever was. Almost like she’s not gone…almost. I thank God/ Buddha/ Allah/ Bill Gates every day that I can still hear her say…in my head…clear as day…’Hello Dahl’in’ when I’d come over for breakfast. I can still feel her eyes on me when I’m pontificating something particularly ridiculous that really needs that look of ‘you are SO full of shit’ cast upon it in order to distill any useful information, if there *is* any. Unfortunately, I can still hear, clear as day…’..I think your mother has passed away..’ in voice so full of pain and disbelief…uncertainty and panic that surely that couldn’t have been MY father on the other end of the phone…and the feel of her forehead under my hand; growing cold no matter how all-consuming my will to not let it be so grew. 

     


    And the phone calls…oh my God the phone calls. I hope, dear reader, that you never have to tell your brother or sister that your mother…or father…is dead. “Hey little brother…I know it’s 2am, and I’m sorry to wake you. But I’m calling to ruin your life….to tell you that your children will never get to know Gradma…that last Christmas, just 15 days ago really, was the VERY last time we’d ever see our three stockings filled with that useless and delightfully unexpected stuff that mom always put in them or that ANY of the Christmas decorations will get used or…that right now I want you to drive 3 hours over here and take a post-hole digger to my chest because it would HAVE to feel better than this!”  I wanted to crawl to the center of the earth and let her  compact me to the size of a pin head…dark, self-contained, small, alone, and utterly beaten. But I still had to call my youngest brother…and then her sister…and then I want…REALLY want to close a wall safe door on my head again and again to force that silence out of my head…fill than empty space…to shut myself up…to get on with my day. Like now.

Comments (6)

  • Congratulations on your first post! The Xanga Community welcomes you. Good luck and happy weblogging!

  • smack you very much xanga team and your automatic congrats…not appropriate in all cases!

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  • lord god zane,  i’m sorry to hear about your mother. 

  • This entry brought tears to my eyes.

    I don’t have any brothers or sisters.  I dread the day my mom passes away… I love her to death.  She’s the most important person in my life.  I’m sorry this happened to you.  I can’t imagine the pain.

  • Thanks Znith…I *will* say this. It was the first time in my life that I literally COULDN’T imagine a tomorrow. Like the next twenty seconds into the future was this black, quilted, soundless void that held any number of unknown horrors; as if this happening enabled all sorts of other evils to come raining down on me and mine. But the good news (and the bad/sad news, I suppose) is that the world won’t end, and you will go on. I never understood (or thought it was a bunch of 12 step tripe) it when they said that someone lives *in* you. But they do; literally. I find my mom and what she’s left me with tempering my thoughts every day…and once it stops hurting so badly, you’re glad for it…you really are. Because you have that, and that’s really all we leave behind anyway…well that, a stack of bills, and some stashed pornography ;)

  • Good God Zane, I just read this.  I’m sorry I didn’t before.  Thank you for sharing it…. and much love to you and your family.

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