Handling it Well

The one about grief and moving forward, two years later.

It’s been unseasonably gloomy where I live in southern California. Yesterday and today’s skies look similar to how our winters usually look. I’m sure there’s some meteorological reason for this, but I’m taking it as a sign the universe has recognized the dates on the calendar, and the mild humming of anxiety I’ve had in my chest. I’ll take the gloominess, thank you.

Yesterday of two years ago commenced the worst three days of my life. And for a moment in time, yesterday in 2020 was the very worst, actually — starting with the call that woke me up, from a nurse letting me know my mom had suddenly, unexpectedly, taken a turn for the worst and was now on a ventilator. (I had talked to her just that evening before; she’d joked about going dancing.) It was a full day filled with phone calls I’ll never forget, questions from doctors I never thought I’d have to answer, decisions I never in my wildest nightmares thought I’d be put in a position to make, and a version of my mom I’d hoped to never see. Everyone sounded frantic and unsure, and frankly, not very reassuring. (It was July 2020 so you can imagine the overall mood in any hospital in the world at that time.) I thought, though, that maybe the decisions I was forced to be making, the makeshift plan Bs I was figuring out over the phone with doctor after doctor in those 24 hours would be enough to change the tide. Enough to let that day retain the top spot in the list of all my most terrible days, so that recovering and hope and optimism could shine through and bring my mom through the worst of it successfully, victoriously. I thought maybe I could fix it, and I could save her.

You know the ending, though. It wasn’t enough. It could never have been enough, and lucky for the 24th, it would quickly be usurped for worst day ever by July 26th (aka tomorrow), the day my mom actually, suddenly, despite all prayers and pleas to God, was gone.

Since that day (days?), I’ve been told many times, in various ways and by various people, that I’m handling it all “well.” I’ve even told myself that. And sure, I guess I am. I have. As well as you can handle losing the person closest to you in the world. It seems like a very weird thing to be good at, though. I appreciate why people say it, but it’s also the worst kind of compliment. I’m not so sure it’s something I want a gold star for — being awesome at rebounding after the universe kicked me in the heart and took my person. It’s not something I wanted to find out I was skilled at.

They say the world doesn’t stop when you go through something hard, and that is resoundingly the truth. The only constant in life is change, whether you’re ready for it or not. I guess that’s part of what made losing my mom when and how I did so traumatic; I absolutely wasn’t ready for it. I was wildly unprepared, for all of it. The questions, the decision-making, the consequences, the breathtaking loss. I wasn’t prepared, not that you really ever can be. And you know? A part of me is still angry — angry that my mom had to leave this world the way she did, and angry that I had to lose her when I did. I was 33, about to turn 34. That’s much too early, isn’t it? Let me answer it for you — yes, it is. She’ll never meet my children. She’ll never see me even reach middle age. And she left me alone in what is without question one of the most tumultuous and uncertain periods in our nation’s history. As I said to my best friend this weekend, I know I’m an adult but I just… I want my mom to tell me everything is going to be okay.

So much has changed, and yet… and yet… we move forward. I know full well that I am not — very unfortunately — the only person who has lost someone important to them in the last 2 years, unexpectedly and traumatically. Covid, mass shootings, and just, you know, the regular stuff (cancer, accidents, the list goes on). Grief does not operate in a vacuum, and it does not go away. You learn to live with it. You learn to strap it to your body like a backpack full of stones and you keep on going. It never gets lighter; you get stronger.

I’ve come a long way since July 2020, but it still feels like yesterday that this all happened. Since I came undone. So much has happened since, and yet… I still sometimes have a moment where I instinctively think to myself that I need to let my mom know this or that. I still have pockets of time that I don’t know what to do with, because previously I would have called or texted her. I still don’t know what to do with myself late at night when I’m home alone; I’ve gotten better at it, but it’s a lonely feeling to know there’s no one out there who’s waiting to hear from you, no one who will talk to you at absolutely any hour of the day or night if you need them.

By way of disclaimer, I know I was extremely lucky (and perhaps spoiled) to have the type of mother I did; not everyone, even with two living parents, ever has someone like that, who’s endlessly accessible and interested in how they’re doing. My mom made herself available for me 24/7 from the second I was born, and never asked for anything in return. How many people can say that? Trust me, I don’t take it lightly, and I never took the role she played in my life for granted. It means, though, that the hole she left in my world is that much harder to fill, even with the most wonderfully supportive and loving friends in the galaxy in your corner.

No matter your age, or the length of time that’s swept by, grief is hard. It is relentless, full stop — even when you’re excellent at pulling yourself out of the ocean before the undercurrent grabs your foot (which is what sorrow often feels like to me). Even when you’re so very good at handling it well.

I’ve never been particularly good at endings — not in essays and stories, and not in real life. So, let me leave you with two things, the first of which is that if you have people in your life who have experienced a great loss, no matter when it happened, please check in on them. Don’t assume they’re fine just because they haven’t mentioned it or they seem alright, or because XYZ amount of time has passed. And if you are hoping to better understand grief, give this TED Talk by the unparalleled Nora McInerney a watch; it is the best of the best, in my opinion. She gets it, and she explains it well.

And frankly, I feel like I should thank YOU for coming to my TED Talk at this point; who knew I could still have this much to say about grief and loss at this point, huh?

So much has changed, and yet…

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I hope it’s sunnier in your neck of the woods, friends. Sending you love and peace and honestly, lots of cheese — I’m planning on making this tonight.

If you think this essay could be of comfort to a friend going through something similar, I hope you’ll share it with them. And if any of it resonated with you, I hope you’ll let me know; I started this space almost two years ago not just for a creative and cathartic outlet, but also for community. It’s the most important thing, I think, when the world feels exceptionally hard.

Thanks for reading,

Joelle