I would have thought that going through the death of my mother would be just “another experience,” but as usual, my assumptions were incorrect.
She died almost a year ago - August - and the effects of watching her demise and ultimately watching her die have made irreparable impressions on me.
I was a child of nine years when my father died. He died at home, in our living room, and I watched it. The slow, impenetrable loss of life made an impression, but it wasn’t until many years later that it would make itself known.
As a kid, I had no understanding of death - what it was, how it happened, or what happens afterward. I remember feeling almost nothing, and later feeling like something had changed, but I wasn’t certain what. Eventually, it dawned on me that I no longer had a father, or a father-figure. Mom tried to replace that with friends and family, but I was already too shut-off from people that I couldn’t accept their gestures. I don’t know if they were awkward or if it was my reticence that made them eventually amount to zero.
From then until … well, now … I have had to live a life without a man to relate any feelings to or find a common ground about … well, now … being a man. So, here I am as the person before you. Good or bad, it’s, as they say, the way it is.
Dad’s death was more of an eventual calamity than immediate. At least for me it was. Mom had a much harder time with it, losing her lover, her provider, and her rock. Dad and I were as close as we could be, but there is nothing that compares with the love of a husband and wife - at least I hope so.
When mom died last year, I thought I would - just as eventually - get over the idea that I no longer have her in my life. After all, she was 96 and, aren’t people supposed to feel as though they’ve lived a “full life” by then? I don’t know.
What has happened instead, is that I struggle with my own mortality. At the age of 64, I am most certainly on the back-nine of life. MAYBE I have a good 20 years left? Compared to the ones behind me, it’s a drip in the ocean. Besides which, I haven’t exactly lived the “full life” as advertised.
Have any of us? Have we achieved any of the things that we sought? At this point, I feel as though I have lived a mostly wasted life, and I’m contemplating what it is - exactly - that we’re supposed to be doing here.
Let me know when you figure it out.
