Six months

My mom died in July.  I don’t know the exact date. The date on her death certificate and on her headstone is the day I found her in her bed, but she had been gone at least a couple of days before I got there. I try not to go back and pick and pick and pick at that scab. The “what-if” of the whole thing. (What if her boss had actually called me on the first day she didn’t show up at work? What if I had called her over the weekend? What if she had just fucking called me when she got sick? What if she committed suicide and was able to hide that fact?)

I thought I would be a big mess over the holidays since it was always her favorite time of the year. Her birthday is was the day after Christmas and she always wanted sweaters and earrings for gifts. (She was terrible about losing earrings, I don’t know what she did with all those sweaters.) We managed to get through the season without too many tears, no anti-anxiety medication, and relatively low stress. I gave money to a family who needed it and it made me feel a little better. I used some of her money so that Santa could bring something more elaborate than in regular years.

I’m kind of angry at her right now, actually. Maybe that’s why I wasn’t heartbroken over Christmas. Even if she didn’t take her own life in one conscious act, she did it slowly and, I think, possibly purposefully. She had uncontrolled high blood pressure. She struggled with clinical depression. She smoked. She drank.  A lot.  The last medications we were able to find in her apartment were prescribed were four or five years ago. I really don’t think she had been to the doctor in years. I don’t think she wanted to live a long life. She didn’t want to end up like her mother and grandmother who were completely wiped blank by dementia in their nineties. So, she didn’t do anything about the blood pressure. She exacerbated it with alcohol and nicotine. She didn’t give a thought to the fact that she had two granddaughters who loved her very, very much and that she had grandchildren still to come that she hadn’t even bothered to meet yet.

I read one of her old journal entries that described her plan to go to a hotel in Laughlin and kill herself with pills she’d hoarded over the years. She couldn’t find a hotel room though, so she came home. She thought a hotel death would somehow soften the blow. She had chosen to discontinue her depression medication. This was right about the time that I was pregnant with my youngest, but she apparently didn’t care. She was obviously in the grip of a depression that I can’t even begin to understand, but I’m still pissed off about it.

I like to think that she wouldn’t commit suicide at home because she would have known that I’d be the one to find her. I don’t think she’d do that to me. The complete lack of self-care and resulting death though, she did do that. She did it to me and to my sister and to my kids and to my unborn niece or nephew. She did that and I’m trying to forgive her.

Grief is so unpredictable. I didn’t cry when I saw my mom’s headstone for the first time, but I sobbed when one of the stupid TV shows we used to watch together premiered. I’m pretty sure most people don’t cry about dumb crime procedurals.

Snipping threads

My mom died two months ago. I found my mom dead two months ago.

It’s funny how my anxiety and grief waxes and wanes. Not the good kind of funny. When I’m busy at work or distracted by a book, I’m able to forget for a few minutes. Even a few hours. But then it all comes rushing back. My mom is dead. I found her. Dead.

Her email is forwarding to me. The constant trickle of her email subscriptions made me decide to go into her box and delete them. I was struck by how obvious it was that it was a dead woman’s inbox. Only the little spam robots were still writing to her. I clicked unsubscribe and they would ask, “Why do you wish to unsubscribe from this list?” I decided against a response. I didn’t want to just type, “Because she’s dead.”

I deleted her LinkedIn page. Snip. Another tiny thread that once marked her existence severed. Apartment emptied and most likely already rented again. Credit cards canceled. Mail forwarded. Bills paid. Phone deactivated. The last loose little tic tacs cleaned out of her purse.

I hate to be the one who does these things. Who snips away the reminders.

Facts:

• It’s been six weeks since I found her
• She had set the alarm clock to get up for work
• She had a cup of coffee by her bedside
• She died in her bed
• There was an open jar of peanut butter on her counter
• There were receipts for gin on her counter, but no bottles in the apartment
• She talked about suicide in her journals from several years ago, but not recently
• She had thrown up
• The medical examiner doesn’t believe she took her own life
• She didn’t leave a will or a note

Things I’ll never know:

• When she died
• If she knew how sick she was
• Why she didn’t call me when she was sick
• If she heard my last phone message
• If I could have saved her

I say hello

I don’t even remember when I snapped up the name for this blog. Years ago, probably. I abandoned my last blog when I realized I was much too careless with my personal information and much too free with my criticism of my job and my employers. This space was supposed to be a fresh, relatively anonymous, start. It didn’t happen then for whatever reason (Facebook probably. Always blame Facebook.)

I won’t be using real names here and I won’t be talking about my job.  Or my extended family. Or my ex-boyfriends. My dog though, he’ s open game.