Something I’d heard little bits and pieces of here and there. However, until now I had never had this setting in which to place the incident.
Oh god. It’s after 10:00. Time for bed.
To be continued.
Friday 3/26
Study Hall
I’ve got my own journal and one of Mom’s here with me. I should be concentrating on catching up, especially in science and math, but the teachers don’t really care what we do in study hall as long as we look like we’re working.
So back to Mom.
A coupe of years after Mom and Dad got married, and a few years before I was born, Mom’s parents left on a cross-country summer trip. Mom heard about this through Aunt Morgan, who was occasionally in touch with their parents. The trip was to last for over a month. But on the third day their car was struck by a van and everyone in the accident was killed.
Mom was devastated.
At first I couldn’t figure out why. She wasn’t close to her parents, hadn’t spoken to them in years. It sounded as though she hated them. But I continued to read, and soon is aw that even though Mom had grown apart from her parents, hadn’t understood them, and knew they hadn’t understood her, she still wanted their approval. She still wanted them in her life. She had longed for them to attend her high school graduation, her college graduation, and then her wedding.
After all that time she had hoped they might reconcile. “Perhaps,” Mom wrote, “it will happen if I have a baby one day. Their grandchild.”
And then they died.
Now I understand why Mom had given me her journals. At a certain point she must have
realized that she wasn’t going to beat the cancer, that she was gong to die, and that like her, I am going to be unable to share some of the most important occasions of my life with my mother, even though for a very different reason.
I have just set down the journal I was in the middle of. I’ve decided to go back and start over again with the first journal, to read more slowly, to savor every one of Mom’s words. I’m no longer eager to rush through her life.
Lunchtime
Cafeteria
I’m sitting here by myself, and now I see Dawn, Maggie, and Amalia. I was going to sit along, but they’re heading this way, and that feels okay.
3:50 P.M.
Note: I’m about to start my homework but want to say that I think today went pretty well. Not that I didn’t think of Mom every other second. Not that I didn’t cry four separate times in the girls’ room. Not that I didn’t nearly bite Jill’s stupid head off when she asked me if I miss my mother. (She actually asked me that.) But I got through the day.
Time for homework.
10:39 P.M.
News of the day: I have this enormous pit in my stomach. It’s just huge. It sits there and makes eating difficult and concentrating difficult and sometimes even being nice difficult. But today I was able to ignore it a little. Or to work around it. Or something. I MADE myself eat breakfast before I left the house. I allowed Dawn and the others to sit with me at lunch, instead of insisting on sitting alone. And I ate lunch. Not a huge one, but enough to get by on. When I have trouble concentrating in class or on my homework I just forge ahead. I tell myself I can think about Mom lots of times during the day, but just not at that moment.
To be honest, I feel like the walking dead, but at least I’m walking. I am not going to give in to this feeling. (Is it grief? A different kind of grief? Is this as bad as it gets or is there something worse?)
11:04 P.M.
I almost put the journal away and went to bed, but I can’t stop thinking about something. It’s what Dad and Aunt Morgan were discussing at dinner tonight.
Scattering Mom’s ashes. It’s something Mom talked to Dad about last month, and together they planned some kind of service. A private service with Dad, Aunt Morgan, Dawn, and me present.
Just the four of us. And Mom’s ashes. Dad and Aunt Morgan want to have the service
(ceremony?) soon. Tomorrow. Aunt
Oh god. It’s after 10:00. Time for bed.
To be continued.
Friday 3/26
Study Hall
I’ve got my own journal and one of Mom’s here with me. I should be concentrating on catching up, especially in science and math, but the teachers don’t really care what we do in study hall as long as we look like we’re working.
So back to Mom.
A coupe of years after Mom and Dad got married, and a few years before I was born, Mom’s parents left on a cross-country summer trip. Mom heard about this through Aunt Morgan, who was occasionally in touch with their parents. The trip was to last for over a month. But on the third day their car was struck by a van and everyone in the accident was killed.
Mom was devastated.
At first I couldn’t figure out why. She wasn’t close to her parents, hadn’t spoken to them in years. It sounded as though she hated them. But I continued to read, and soon is aw that even though Mom had grown apart from her parents, hadn’t understood them, and knew they hadn’t understood her, she still wanted their approval. She still wanted them in her life. She had longed for them to attend her high school graduation, her college graduation, and then her wedding.
After all that time she had hoped they might reconcile. “Perhaps,” Mom wrote, “it will happen if I have a baby one day. Their grandchild.”
And then they died.
Now I understand why Mom had given me her journals. At a certain point she must have
realized that she wasn’t going to beat the cancer, that she was gong to die, and that like her, I am going to be unable to share some of the most important occasions of my life with my mother, even though for a very different reason.
I have just set down the journal I was in the middle of. I’ve decided to go back and start over again with the first journal, to read more slowly, to savor every one of Mom’s words. I’m no longer eager to rush through her life.
Lunchtime
Cafeteria
I’m sitting here by myself, and now I see Dawn, Maggie, and Amalia. I was going to sit along, but they’re heading this way, and that feels okay.
3:50 P.M.
Note: I’m about to start my homework but want to say that I think today went pretty well. Not that I didn’t think of Mom every other second. Not that I didn’t cry four separate times in the girls’ room. Not that I didn’t nearly bite Jill’s stupid head off when she asked me if I miss my mother. (She actually asked me that.) But I got through the day.
Time for homework.
10:39 P.M.
News of the day: I have this enormous pit in my stomach. It’s just huge. It sits there and makes eating difficult and concentrating difficult and sometimes even being nice difficult. But today I was able to ignore it a little. Or to work around it. Or something. I MADE myself eat breakfast before I left the house. I allowed Dawn and the others to sit with me at lunch, instead of insisting on sitting alone. And I ate lunch. Not a huge one, but enough to get by on. When I have trouble concentrating in class or on my homework I just forge ahead. I tell myself I can think about Mom lots of times during the day, but just not at that moment.
To be honest, I feel like the walking dead, but at least I’m walking. I am not going to give in to this feeling. (Is it grief? A different kind of grief? Is this as bad as it gets or is there something worse?)
11:04 P.M.
I almost put the journal away and went to bed, but I can’t stop thinking about something. It’s what Dad and Aunt Morgan were discussing at dinner tonight.
Scattering Mom’s ashes. It’s something Mom talked to Dad about last month, and together they planned some kind of service. A private service with Dad, Aunt Morgan, Dawn, and me present.
Just the four of us. And Mom’s ashes. Dad and Aunt Morgan want to have the service
(ceremony?) soon. Tomorrow. Aunt
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