The Grief Parade

What can I say that hasn't been said before?

Today marks five years since my mom was diagnosed with lung cancer, stage 2. (Or was it stage 3? I honestly can’t remember, but as I recently heard someone cleverly say, anything with ‘stages’ is generally not good.) The first stop in what would become my very un-fun grief parade.

(If you’re new here, spoiler alert — things did not end well. She ultimately passed away four months later, in July of that same year.)

My body always feels this day coming, exhausted and heavy in that funny little way that our bodies hang on to trauma, but my brain momentarily forgot we were already that far into March that the day would be upon us. I was reading a newsletter Monday morning and it reminded me that this was the *big* week in 2020 when everything fell apart thanks to the pandemic, very quickly and all at once. Including, it would turn out, my little world.

As you may recall, things started out with the pandemic a bit naively — in those early couple of weeks, most of us (luckily?) really didn’t know how scary things would get. Same too with my mom’s diagnosis. I still remember where I was when she told me over the phone, how I scream-cried to my husband and then to my best friend. I’ve talked about it all before, ad nauseam. I was in disbelief, but yet, at the same time, I think I knew right then that things would never be the same, and that we’d started the timer on something that would only, could only, end badly. The sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, the ache within my bones. I felt it, and I’m not sure I ever told anyone or said it out loud, because frankly I didn’t want to be right. (Reader, I was right.)

For some reason, this year’s anniversary of her diagnosis feels eerily similar to the first one, as if I didn’t already do this four other times. Existential dread has the volume turned on high right now, much like this same week back in March 2020, and I find myself feeling almost like it’s the first time all over again. It reminds me of that scene in “You’ve Got Mail,” when Meg Ryan’s character has to close her bookstore, and she says it felt her mother had died all over again. Almost everything feels broken again, tainted, sad. Almost everything, because this time I have something I didn’t have back in 2020, or during any of the other anniversaries. Someone, rather. This time, my daughter is with me.

She has no idea why I dislike March or what today means or doesn’t mean. She’s just happy to be. I had a moment yesterday, holding her in my arms as she looked out in awe at the rain coming down across our backyard (she hasn’t seen a lot of rain yet in her young life as a Californian), that it feels almost impossible that so much has happened since my mom left. Impossible that she has missed so much, and yes, missed this sweet girl too. When she’d died, I didn’t live in the city I’m in now, I hadn’t even been married very long, and I still didn’t think having a kid was in the cards for me. She’s missed so much, and is missed so much, even as she’s stayed with me. Within me.

I miss her, I miss her, I miss her.

Whew. Just needed to say that, you know?

Anyways, that’s where I’m at. Today, this week, lately. Missing my mom so much it hurts, and loving this newest member of my fam maybe a little bit more than that — so much so that I almost forget about my backpack of grief. Soon this day will be over once again, but til then, I’ll hold it (and really this whole week of memories from five years ago) with reverence and compassion. It didn’t break me, and it didn’t break us (you!); we keep going. Sometimes we just need the reminder.

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It feels almost fitting that I go literal months without writing in this space and my first newsletter issue back will be about grief and my mom.🙃 On brand, I suppose. But, that’s what got me to start this Substack to begin with back in 2020. (It was originally called The Yay Club, because I was just trying to cultivate some more joy and creativity in my own life.)

Sending you all love — thanks for continuing to be here! If you’re looking for something to listen to, may I suggest this playlist, which allegedly is exactly what Taylor Swift’s iPod back in 2008 included, in order. Oh, and I HAVE got to recommend (no, insist!) that you watch “With Love, Meghan.” I am literally obsessed with this show, I want to buy all of Meghan’s jam and I don’t even really use jam, and I now need to figure out how to get a separate room in my house just for making balloon arches and dried fruit. (My only beef with this show that is so fabulously devoid of the current reality? All the bees in the first episode. Any reasonable millennial knows you absolutely don’t eff with bees. I’ve been scarred since watching “My Girl” back in the early ‘90, IYKYK.)

Thanks for reading,

Joelle