Grief is inconvenient

I’m in Boston. Tomorrow I get up and bury my mother. Sigh.

I’ve had episodes of grief and near panic about this, and then it passes, and then it comes back. Will I feel better once it’s over, once we have jettisoned her ashes to the Boston Bay along with her sister and brother-in-law? Once I’ve done the last - and only, for a long time - thing I have to do for her? Once I’ve had the last day that gets to be all about her? Does it get to be about me, now? Ah, The Song of the Child of the Narcissist. Sing it louder and we can all dance to it. 

I arrived last night and had lots of crazy dreams, mostly about her, of course. At one point I became very warm and was convinced she was visiting me. I felt her love for me, utterly enveloping. But even in the dream I was fighting it. “That’s all bullshit. It’s a nice fantasy, but no.” Her consciousness is gone, as is her human form. She knows nothing but that she is dead. Selah. 

I carry her genes, her blood, her mannerisms, her attitudes about things (for better or worse). On stage tonight I couldn’t help but think about how much my voice sounds like hers, how I’m doing this entirely because of her influence, how the countless times I watched her perform no doubt seeped into me, affecting every look and movement that I like to think are authentically mine. They’re not. 

Maybe some day my boys will fight my influence - maybe they’ll be proud of it. I feel both, really. Bobby is already so me it’s a little scary. Theo, like all younger siblings, automatically gets the freedom to create his own thing, and does with relish. Oh, let’s hope I don’t alienate them with my selfishness the way she did me.

I don’t want to be sad - sad feels helpless; lost. I feel more comfortable being angry because it feels empowering. I’m angry that she let this happen to her - isolated herself far away, clung to foolish beliefs, let herself die slowly and in a ghastly manner. I feel like you don’t have the right to do things like that if you’re a parent. I would never put my boys through that - having to find me, figure out all my shit with zero roadmap, left with no note or explanation or apology...fuck that. What she did sucks. And we get to carry that forever, and someday I have to explain to her grandchildren what happened to her...the same way she explained to me that her grandmother died in a sanitarium after repeated suicide attempts. Good times! 

I had hoped to write something to say tomorrow but I haven’t been able to do it. I picked a nice Blossom Dearie version of the song Some Other Time to play (I didn’t think I could make it through singing it); beyond that I don’t really know what I’m going to do or say. 

Here I am at this joyful Lindy Hop event full of love and youth and community, and yet I have to go do this dark thing tomorrow. It feels so out of place and fills me with dread, like prying open a coffin. 

I hope I can get through it and feel relief. This is the only thing required of me for her, ever again. I can suck it up for a day and try to remember the good times (there were many) and try to purport myself like a respectful young (?) lady. I owe her at least that. Hold the good thought for me, would you?