Missing you in silence

There are times when I feel like people read my posts and assume that because I had so much trauma surrounding my mother, that I must not be that upset that she is gone, happier now that she is not here, or just hated her.

As much as I sometimes wish that were true, it’s not.

There are so many things that encapsulate my mom’s death. So many layers that surround her being gone, each of them wrapped around the fact of just that. My mom is dead.

 So, Let’s talk about it.

The best way I can describe losing my mother is to say that I spend my days missing her in silence. Although I talk about her a lot, I talk about the trauma I went through because of her, or with her. I talk about the things I can’t forget because of her and the habits she gave me that I am trying to break none of these things replace the love I had for my mother.

There were days where I almost wished she would drink herself to death so I wouldn’t have to keep living this nightmare with her. There were days where I almost wished she would crash her car drinking and driving so she would learn her lesson. There were times where I wished she’d have to live out events in my life caused by her, just so she would experience what she put me through. But deep down, I wasn’t ready to lose my mom.

When I lost my mom in 2021, it wasn’t because of any reason I had prepared myself for and that was the hardest part. I felt like I was emotionally ready for her drinking to ultimately end her life, I was prepared for a drinking and driving accident. What I was not prepared for was a girl’s vacation, ending in my mother never getting on that plane to come home.

And so, I miss her in silence.

For the first month after my mom died, I cried. A LOT. I don’t really remember a time that I wasn’t crying. And then month two I cried a lot in the shower, where my kids couldn’t hear me. Where no one would know that I was grieving my mom. I don’t know why I felt like I needed to hide that I was still in pain, why I felt like my life getting flipped upside down and losing the women who gave me life was something I should have to hide being upset about. There wasn’t a soul in those first two months that told me I needed to get over it. Yet for some reason, I felt I needed to be stronger than I was, and that this death was making me far too weak.

And so, I missed her in silence.

For months after that, there were no tears. There was no talking about her, there was no listening to her favorite songs, there was no mention of her name or what had happened in Jamaica. There was just me, sitting in her bedroom, in her house, refusing to do anything, refusing to leave, refusing to visit with family, or to spend time with friends.

There was just me in her room, missing her in silence.

It wasn’t until people started telling me I needed to see a therapist, or that I was losing my shit, or that I was going to spiral out of control, or that I had shut down completely that I realized I had been missing her in silence. It wasn’t until I realized I hadn’t allowed myself to cry, to actually grieve her, to actually accept that she was dead, and she wasn’t coming back that I realized I had been missing her in silence. And when it hit me, it was a random Thursday.

I had got my kids on the bus to go to school, I had some errands to run so I did them, and almost like I was on autopilot I drove to the liquor store. I waited in the parking lot for them to open. I went in, I bought an undetermined amount of alcohol, I drove myself to the cemetery. I stared at the square of dirt that still hadn’t grown grass, I spoke to an angel statue that I used in place of the head stone that I couldn’t afford to buy her, and I sobbed. I ugly cried, I got drunk and cried and screamed and cussed her out for leaving me. I told her how much I hated her for leaving me without an apology, I told her that I hated her for making me deal with this alone, I told her I hated her for not preparing me for losing my mom at 30, I screamed at her for not leaving a will that told me what to do when she died, I screamed at her for not giving me the closure I needed, no last words acknowledging everything she had put me through, everything she had done to me, everything she never apologized for.

In that moment, I realized that although I thought being strong was what I needed to do, missing her in silence was not the same thing as being strong. I needed to talk about her, I needed other people to talk about her, I needed to yell and be mad at her, I needed other people to acknowledge that I was mad and that it was okay.

I don’t hate my mother; I didn’t hate her when she died.

What I hated was the lack of remorse for what she did to me.

What I hated was the addiction that ran her life.

What I hated was her lack of ability to be a protective mother.

What I hated was her lack of ability to take care of herself, never mind us.

What I hated was I knew I would have to wait until she was on her death bed, barely able to spit out a word before I got the apology I deserved, and that moment was ripped away from me because of a girls trip to Jamaica.

The layers that wrap around the moment my mom died are plenty.

They are trauma filled, stressful, and painful.

Although I have addressed them all, tried working through them the best I could, and have accepted that the closure I need I am never going to get…

There are still some days where I choose to miss her in silence.

It’s less painful for me that way.

Grief is a crazy thing, it comes in waves, it is unforgiving, it doesn’t care where you are, what you're doing, who you are with. It is triggered by sounds, smells, certain foods, and places. Even sometimes mannerisms. There is no right way to deal with it, there is no book that explains the “made for everyone” steps to follow to get over it, because for everyone grief is different.

 Sometimes I miss her in tears, and screaming, and cursing her name.

Other times. I choose to miss her in silence.

And that’s okay too.