Losing and Regaining One's Center

It has been many months since I made a contribution to this blog—many months and a lot of living.

My mother passed away on March 4, 2010. Below, you can find a post or two on her condition over the last months. Although it was hard to lose her, we had been losing her for several years, and in some ways it was a relief that she would no longer be confined to the body that had ceased to serve her well.

But it was startling to find myself alone in life in a very fundamental way. Although I am surrounded by my husband, our children, and many friends, I found that no longer having my mother in the world, even in the limited way she was here for the last few years, was enormously disconcerting. The power our mothers have to anchor us in this world is astonishing. For weeks afterward, I drifted around the house sort of floating in an amorphous space, sorting out what this meant—having a lifelong connection with someone I loved fiercely severed suddenly. Little waves of grief would hit every couple of days—not wild grief, but a quiet sadness and sense of loss that I simply had to sit with and allow myself to feel until it passed.

I have a little girl-bear—it is the only thing of my mother's that I took away from the nursing home. I had bought her for my mom on Mother's Day the last year that she was reasonably cognizant of gifts. She loved the little bear—cinnamon-colored, with a big pink bow tied around its head and holding a little pink heart that said, "I love mom!" The bear now sits on my bed during the day and on the nightstand at night, and because of all the love my mother poured into it while she had it, I feel love pouring out of it every time I pick it up. It's a dear memento.

Exactly one week after my mother passed, my first granddaughter, Sydney, was born. Emotionally she felt like a gift meant to fill the hole that my mother left behind. I haven't met her face-to-face yet, but I love her so dearly. My son is wonderful about sending photos and videos of both the children, and on Mother's Day this year, he Skyped me so I could see my grandson chattering and showing me his toys, and Sydney staring at the webcam with huge dark eyes. It was a lovely hour, even though the picture was chunky and pixilated from the heavy Mother's Day load on the Internet.

I'm in a process of transformation these days. Something concrete in me has crumbled, and that's actually a good thing. I feel more expansive and free. Some days I miss my mom so much, but I have missed her for years—ever since she began to stumble on words and forget the names of her grandchildren. At the same time, there's a new freedom budding and growing. I don't know where it leads exactly, but it feels all right. It feels like I'm finding a truer center than the one I thought I had. It's tenuous, but I embrace it with gratitude.