Help, I'm still at the restaurant
Still sitting in a corner I haunt
Cross-legged in the dim light
They say, "What a sad sight"
I, I swear you could hear a hair pin drop
Right when I felt the moment stop
Glass shattered on the white cloth
Everybody moved on
I, I stayed there—Taylor Swift
Last Wednesday marked three years since my mom passed away. I still have to disassociate when I write out those words, or say out loud to anyone that she died. It still feels surreal, still feels like I’m talking about somebody else’s mom. Somebody else’s life.
Three years in, and I still sort of cannot believe it.
That, I suppose is the magic and the misery of grieving. Just like the ever wise Taylor once said (above, from this wonderful song), I stayed there. Everybody moved on, and in so many ways, I’m still exactly where I was 3+ years ago. Part of me is still frozen on the kitchen floor, confused and overwhelmed that my mom had gone from fine to whatever the absolute opposite of that is in the course of one night’s sleep. Part of me is still standing next to her hospital bed, begging the nurse to keep trying to revive her. Not yet, not yet, not yet.
In three years, I’ve moved forward and I’ve moved on in many ways, and grief fits differently than it once did, but even so… part of me stayed right there, frozen on the 26th of July in 2020.
I wondered what would find me on the 3-year anniversary (deathiversary?). The last couple had been… not great, seemingly an opportunity for a string of bad luck on that day/week. This year left me karmically unscathed (bless you, universe), but several days leading up, I was just… not myself. I’ve tried to tell myself the day can be whatever I need to be, and that it can actually become a nice day, perhaps, someday… but so far, that’s not seemed realistic. Like a scene out of “Stranger Things,” I can almost imagine a swirling darkness filling my body, weighing me down and forcing me to remember all of the things I’ve so blissfully compartmentalized throughout the other 51 weeks of the year. It culminates in my dark day, a la Luke Danes in “Gilmore Girls.” I put my phone on ‘do not disturb’ and I take the day off of work, and I just… disappear. I mean, not quite that dramatic — I go somewhere to wander and do my annual re-listening to Taylor’s “Folklore;” the album dropped the night my mom took her turn for the worst, so it’s an album I cannot listen to anymore without thinking of everything related to that period of time.
I considered not writing about it at all this year. Not allowing myself to sink into it and reflect, again, on how unfair it still feels that I lost my mom when I was only 33. (And certainly I know there is a lot that feels unfair in this world, and in a lot of ways, I’m more privileged than most.) But then I read about a young actor who passed away yesterday, succumbing — it seems — to the depths of his own grief over the recent loss of his father, and goodness. What a heartbreaking reminder that yes, grief is incredibly hard. Losing someone you love can feel nearly impossible to bear. [Side note: you can call or text 988 if you are struggling; someone’s available 24/7.] The fact that anyone freshly grieving is able to get up every day and just show up — sit in a coffee shop, participate in a Zoom meeting, brush their teeth — is a feat in and of itself, and I’m here to tell you that if you’re going through it right now, I’m with you. I see you.
We don’t talk enough about how much grief sucks, about how losing a parent will happen to every single one of us eventually and that no matter how old you are when it does, it’s probably going to hurt. Loss of all kinds has the power to break you, and everyone — everyone! — experiences grief in their own way. There is no handling it well. It does not look the same on me as it will for you or for someone else. There’s no one right way to address your grief or move forward, but God, it helps to know there’s someone else who has been there and made it through to the other side… or at least I think so. It’s weird to say, but I thank my lucky stars I had a couple of friends who’d been there before me (the worst club with the best members, as my friend Theodora once told me). And even when you have the greatest support system in the world and strong mental health (both of which are categories I feel grateful to be able to plop myself into), it can feel like a war you’ve been thrust into, unprepared… because nothing can prepare you for a great loss, whether it’s of someone or something (because you can grieve the loss of other things, besides people… pets, experiences, relationships, etc.). Nothing.
Sometimes when I really miss my mom, I’ll go to one of the spaces that remind me of her or of happy memories from when I was a kid. I’ve written about that before, but this weekend, I found myself at the mall blankly picking up pairs of sneakers in the shoe department of Nordstrom. I grew up in the ‘90s, aka peak mall culture, and my mom and I frequently went shopping together. In my 20s, when I first moved to Washington, D.C., I’d often pop into the mall after work in order to stave off my homesickness, calling my mom as I perused random boutiques and ran my hands through racks of clothing I knew I didn’t need. Window shopping. I rarely go to malls anymore, but when I do, I immediately want to call my mom (and eat a buttery soft pretzel from Auntie Anne’s). Sunday was no different, and when I left without buying anything, I wished so badly I could call her up. Tell her about the goofy people I’d come across, or how I couldn’t tell what size I needed in this one item. I imagined sitting on the fake leather seats in a department store, trying to describe to her what I was looking for and her, in turn, offering up her suggestions, along with questions about what I was going to make for dinner and asking how I was feeling, or what was on the docket for this coming week at work. I miss her, every day, and whether it’s three years or 33, I think I’ll still feel this way — the deep crack in my chest, the backpack of rocks that will forever be on. But I carry on — we carry on.
If you’re going through it, please keep going. You’ve showed up, and that says something about you.
++++++++++
Thank you for being here, this creative project that I started in 2020 frankly because I needed somewhere to both pour my energy during the pandemic and as a tool to help me understand and process my grief. It’s become one of my missions in life to normalize grief and this little spot on the internet is my way to shout from the digital rooftops that grief is normal, and not something obscene we shouldn’t dare to talk about aloud.
If you are struggling, please, please know you are not alone. You can call or text 988 for support, 24/7 (it’s free and confidential). You matter, and you are stronger than you think. xo
Thanks for reading,
Joelle
❤️🩷❤️🩷
Beautiful words. I feel for you, and I know the anniversaries must be especially hard. I can definitely relate to the childhood mall memories. Do you remember back when Nordstrom used to have a piano player? Well they did at our Nordstrom anyway…the other day I heard piano somewhere and it took me back to walking through the mall with my grandma and mom, trying to visit a million stores in one day during one of our shopping trips. Thanks for showing up on the page for us!