Made it back

that's all I hoped for

both because of my dislike/fear of flying and getting through that fucking fuckshow.

Well. It wasn’t as bad as I feared. But it was also bad. And also a lot of good.

Let’s start with the good. The trip started with a stay at a grade-A five-star Friends Who Saves Lives member, EK. I knew I’d be terribly, terribly tender. I couldn’t think of any way to buffer myself.

But EK was not only going to be going to my mom’s Thing, but offered me to stay with her the night before. I extended that to TWO nights before, going a day before my husband and kids.

We had hours of calm, quiet, health, solitude, connection. Lots of green juice. I felt as prepared as I could be and so very grateful.

EK knows my mom as well as anyone, spent a ton of time at our house growing up. One thing I appreciate about her, about our relationship, about her connection to/knowing of my mom, is that she gets how my mom is so, so, so welcoming and warm and easy. She was deeply crushed by my mom’s impending death. At the same time, she has fiercely protected me and my feelings through all of this. She understands why this is hard for me, even though the person I struggled with is a person for whom both of us have great affection.

Her upbringing was very different from mine, our homes and families so dissimilar. So I understand why she took refuge in my house—and, whether she knew it or not—I in hers. They were…normal, in a way we weren’t. Even though now I see their dysfunction, it was a different sort than my own in in that way it was comforting.

So—I had a full 24+ hours alone with my beloved E, and then another 12 hours with my family and E, and she was there with me throughout The Thing.

In the end, I did do the “this is my mom/I am funny/MC thing”, which felt right. I knew I didn’t have to do it—that I could wander away when, if, how I wanted to (and thanks to all of you who reminded me I was allowed to do this.) But I felt grounded and like it was important to me to say in several different ways that I was her daughter. I was her only daughter, despite how things might appear, might be retold.

It felt good to take some ownership of that which felt like a whirlpool of people and conversations and questions and emotions.

The aftermath—I am able to breathe more easily.

My sister in law posted something on Facebook about my mom. I’ve refrained from saying anything on social media per her request (one of my jokes was about how I abided by her rules even when she was dead, though I didn’t say it that way. People don’t like the word “dead.”)

I’m now stinging, probably inappropriately/unnecessarily, from all the comments on my (very, truly, lovely kind sister-in-law’s/no snark here) post about how she was like a daughter to my mom,about how they extend their love/sympathy to her and my brother…how lucky my mom was to have them around in her last days. I get it. But these are people who know me, and I would think they’d know I was there, too. A caveat—and this makes me try to check my jealousy—SIL is a nurse, and she posted from that perspective—how she was grateful to be a nurse so she could take care of my mom.

No blame. I just want to be recognized as her daughter, and to be included with my brother in the sympathies/thanks for being there of family friends and relatives. I’ll never know if my exclusion from this is just the way it should be given that it’s her post and her audience. But I fear, of course, that it’s because I am The Bad Daughter.

Trying to come around to what is probably the truth—The Bad Daughter is a mix of fear and fantasy.

I’m still not crying or feeling anything. But my dreams, after a few weeks of mellowing out, have come roaring back with a specificity and intensity that is hard to bear. Both during—which is how I wake myself—and after—why I’m tired all day.

Clearly this is how I’m processing things and I don’t see the point in trying to do anything about it. I figure that if I could, I would.

All the love.