The WTF Factor of Grief

My mother died on August 16, 2014.  I remember driving with my cousin back towards her house on Thursday, August 12, 2014.  She told me that even though it makes zero sense right now, one day I will be able to look back on all this and realize that God had a plan in all this.  I’m still waiting for this realization.  My mother herself said that maybe it was better this way.  I’m still protesting this view point as I have protested nearly all the things she’s ever said to me.  This is after all the same woman who told me that if I swallowed a seed a tree would grow out of my head.  Or maybe that was my own overactive imagination.  I just remember being terrified by the image of an apple tree growing out of my head after I accidentally swallowed a seed.  To this day, I’m not a big fan of apples.

Lately I’ve felt the stirring of those old emotions.  I’ve come across an old Patty Loveless song on Amazon Prime music called “How Can IHelp You to Say Goodbye.”  That didn’t help because every time I listen to the song, I remember the last time I held my mother’s hand, the way it felt in mine.  It was tiny and fragile.  My hands felt like meat mallets in comparison.  She was weak and a little senseless from the morphine.  She didn’t want it.  But I never learned how to back down from a fight and even then, I fought with her.  She needed it.  My sister-in-law was waiting to give it to her.  She’s a nurse, so she was better able to administer the medication anyway.

 

I remember my mother’s weak slurred voice.  She was irritated.  She complained that I was being irritating.  I fired back that I was going to continue to be irritating until she let my sister-in-law give her the medicine.  What I never said that I would give anything for her not to have to take that morphine.  I would have loved to have begged her to stay.  I would have bargained with God if I could.  Losing someone suddenly is hard but watching someone die is worse. 

I think I stayed long after she left.  I waited until my dad had to give her the next dose.  I remember watching the clock and her, worrying if she was comfortable as she rested on the hospital bed in the middle of her living room.  I remember counting the minutes until her next dose.  I saw when her sleep got worse.  I remember helping my dad as we changed her clothes.  In that moment, I remember thinking that she would hate this.  When she finally settled down to sleep, I picked up her hand and held it.  It was limp in mine. 

I told her leave.  Just go.  Stop fighting and go.  I remembered to tell her I loved her.  I think maybe she heard me because I felt her squeeze my hand.  I would hate to think it was my over active imagination.  I left her house after midnight but walked back through her front doors again around six in the morning.  I don’t know how my dad stood it when he found her dead body just lying there.  I couldn’t look at it.  It had no connection to my mother. 

I still don’t understand this plan of yours God.  It still doesn’t make sense to me.  I can’t stop crying.  The pain inside my chest is still there, like a tumor in my heart that’s resisting treatment.  I feel like I’m barely alive, just moving, going through the motions.  Everyone seems to be moving forward with their lives.  Why can’t I?  Why am I stuck in this place?  Why can’t I move?  God, why doesn’t your plan make any sense to me?