Breaking in(to) a new apartment – literally

Important Note: If you are a friend of the family, please do NOT tell my grandparents about this. Thanks.

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted on the blog. There are several reasons for this:

1) I was in a pretty good mood, and when I write – I cry. In my attempt to avoid crying, I avoid writing.

2) I’ve had a busy few weeks – The Boy and I moved in together.

While this post was originally supposed to be about the move and all the excitement around it, it is actually going to be a bit different.

You see, we moved into a new apartment on a Thursday. On Saturday we went for a healthy walk around town, and split up. The Boy went to the movies. I embarked on the adventure of my life.

When I arrived at home, I opened the door, and someone was looking at me – and it wasn’t The Boy. In my infinite wisdom, aware of the fact that The Boy is not a short, dark Arab, I yelled out, “Who’s there? You’re not The Boy! I’m calling the Police!” The robber calmly walked past me, so as to not sprain his ankle, heaven forbid, walked into our bathroom, closed the door behind him (I’m thinking, dude has to go potty?), stepped on the toilet seat, and jumped out the window.

4.5 meters down.

That would be almost 15 feet.

I’m pretty sure my neck broke during that fall.

Any normal person, at this point, would do one of two things:

1) Faint

2) Call the police

I, of course, elected a different path:

3) Call The Boy

You’re thinking, OK, that could make sense, he lives with you, he should know. But why did I call The Boy first?

I couldn’t remember the phone number for the police in Israel.

Wisdom:0 Stupidity:1

Oooh! Oooh! Do I get the Dumb Victim of the Year award? If so, I’d like to donate the prize money to purchase Google Wave invites for all my friends and colleagues.

So I called The Boy and told him (quite calmly, I must add) that we have a burglar in our apartment (have being the operative word, seeing as the robber was still in the apartment), and that I can’t remember what the Israeli 911 is. Being French, he needed a moment to think about it, told me the number, and ordered me to get out of the apartment.

You see, seeing as I hadn’t fainted at the sight of someone in my apartment who is not The Boy, I guess I figured I should babysit the apartment to make sure no one else would break in.

While the burglar was still there.

Wisdom:0 Stupidity: 2

So I called the police, told them there was a robber in my apartment and that he just jumped out the window, and 2 cops were at my place while I was still on the phone.

As I was showing the cops the window the robber had jumped out of, and the missing glass, the male cop got a call on his radio that there was another break in at the building next door, or another one down, and went running. As he broke into a sprint (good doughnuts are really hard to find in Israel) I suddenly get a phone call from my friend who I had made plans with. Here’s the transcript of the call:

The Nugget: Didn’t you say you were on the first floor, apartment on the left?

Me: Yes (why I stopped talking here is unclear)

The Nugget: Why aren’t you answering the door?

Me: Cause I’m downstairs with the police

The Nugget: *Crickets*

The moment The Nugget came outside, the female cop who stayed with me started to run, and yelled at me to follow because they caught the robbers.

And I’m all, I can’t run, I dance ballet. At best, I can chasse the way there.

I go back to the street, with The Nugget right behind me, and pass 2 cops holding 2 suspects who were definitely not my burglar. Then I reach the third cop, exactly when The Boy got back, and told the cops that he could totally be my guy.

I told them what pants he was wearing, what his height was, the color of his skin, and his approximate age. The Boy and The Nugget took me aside to sit on the bench on the street, and I suddenly saw that there were – no kidding – about 7 or 8 cop cars and a gazillion cops.

I mean, I  know I’m famous and all, but still.

At this point, any normal person who had actually gone straight to Option Number 2: Call the Police would probably digress back to Option Number 1: Faint.

Not me.

Nope. I saw all the cop cars and the cops and I had an incredibly logical thought:

OMIGOSH I need to take a picture of this and post it to Twitter and Facebook.

Wisdom:0 Stupidity: 3

At this point, one of the cops came over to me and asked that we go back to the apartment so I can give my statement.

So we’re upstairs, and I give my statement to Little Cop on the Prairie, who is smaller than my molar teeth. I gave her my personal information and recounted the story. Then another cop came in (Ethiopian – this is important for later) who also took my personal information for a different report that needed to be filed, as I was finishing up recounting the steps with the Little Cop on the Prairie, and then the other cop asked me to tell him the story again.

I asked that he copy from Little Cop on the Prairie and he said OK.

The CSI Tel Aviv guy was in the apartment, dusted the door and window for prints, and found nothing but a shoeprint, but that’s fine.

I was actually calm for the entirety of the evening. Only at night, when I was in bed, my mind began playing tricks on me.

For example, at 3:30 in the morning I was thinking, “If someone breaks in during the night, my Nokia E71 is on the coffee table and it’s expensive” – so I got up and brought the phone next to me.

Then, at 4:30 in the morning, I thought, “If someone breaks in during the night, this is not the optimal thing to be sleeping in” – so I changed clothes.

Then, at 5:30 in the morning, I thought, “If this were an episode of Criminal Minds, and I actually survived the break in, the robber would come back and kill me cause he knows where I live and that I ratted him out” – but there was nothing I could do.

All in all, I’m OK now, but for the first few days after the event, I made The Boy keep the bathroom and shower doors open so I could see if someone was in the apartment, and I still have minor heart attacks every time I come home alone. I never actually had a nervous breakdown after the break in, and for the first few days after, The Boy kept asking me if I was OK and if I needed anything, and even had his mom call in and check up on me to make sure I was OK.

This post has nothing to do with the loss of my mother, other than, perhaps, the fact that I would probably have called her for the number of the police in Israel instead of The Boy. Not that I could actually know, seeing as I never had both of them at the same time.

Neither here nor there

* I always wondered, while watching cop shows, how people knew how to approximate height. In my case, I know how tall I am, and I know that the guy was shorter than me, so I subtracted about 5-10 cm, just as an approximation.

* Little Cop on the Prairie left her walkie talkie on our coffee table, and came back after a few minutes accusing me of not answering my phone. I said my phone is on, she said I’m not answering, I said my phone’s on, and she read off the number she called. I told her that she switched the last two digits and she said, “Ugh, those Ethiopian cops.” The Boy, The Nugget, and I were shocked. We haven’t reported this in case we get broken into again and need cops on our side.

* Other than Little Cop on the Prairie, all of the cops were amazing. I don’t have a single bad word to say about them – they were quick and efficient and very nice.

* When I called the cops, they told me not to touch anything. I swear, I actually said, “Don’t worry, I used to watch CSI – I know.”

Wisdom:0 Stupidity: 4

* My signed statement actually says, “I called (The Boy) because I couldn’t remember the phone number for the police in Israel.”

* For the record, and I only found this out the day after the break in, you can actually dial 911 in Israel and you will reach the police.

 

Physical deletion – or the absolute inability to do so

A few days ago, as I walked down a street, I found a cell phone on the ground. Knowing how much my life depends on my phone nowadays – seeing as I no longer know hardly any phone numbers by heart – I immediately picked it up and decided to locate the owner.

What do you do when you find a cell phone? Call the one person who will know how to find the owner, even if they don’t have the phone: Their mother.

That got me thinking about all the physical evidence of my mother’s life that surrounds me, as if I’m pretending she’s still there. Some of it has been conscious, and some hasn’t.

I cannot delete my mother’s phone number from my phone. That’s just not an option. Deleting it almost feels like disrespect. A few weeks after my mom died, I actually upgraded my phone, and all the numbers were transferred into the new phone, so I do have my mom’s number saved on the new phone, but when I was setting the speed dial numbers, I consciously had to remind myself not to set her number.

Which means everyone on my speed dial list moved up a number.

Which means I kept calling the wrong people.

Which means I was constantly reminded that I had lost my mom.

My phone isn’t the only physical reminder of my mom’s absence that I’m unable to delete or alter. My parents share(d) an email address, and it has always been labeled “Mom” since she was really the one I would email, not my dad. (Oh, how I miss writing Mom with a capital M.)

Since my mom, the in-house Internet expert, is gone, my dad calls me when he needs something done (i.e. get him a hotel room in NYC) so when I email him, my mom’s email address comes up. But before it comes up, there is a weird thought process going on:

Do I start typing “Mom” to get the email address?

Do I start typing the first letters of the actual email address so I don’t have to type “Mom?” I still see my mom’s name when I type it that way.

Do I change the label of the contact from “Mom” to “Dad?” Cause that’s just disrespectful.

Should I just demand my dad get a new email address? (Kidding… not so much?)

And then there are other small examples. Like I had a new cleaning lady when my mom was sick, but she was still fully functional, that is, she wasn’t paralyzed yet, so I would let the cleaning lady in, and my mom would lock up when she left. So I have a little post-it on my fridge that has my phone number and my mom’s phone number.

I have a different cleaning lady now, who I trust with my key, but I just can’t bring myself to remove that post-it from my fridge.

Just like I can’t delete my mom’s number from my phone.

Just like I can’t change the contact label on her email address.

I just can’t delete her from my life that way, cause even if it’s just virtual “existance,” I guess virtual is better than nothing.

Crap, now I’m crying again.

 

Why I am jealous of Senator Ted Kennedy’s family

Sounds a bit weird, doesn’t it? After all, the poor man just died of brain cancer. But, yes, I am jealous.

I would, of course, rather no one have to lose a family member to cancer, but as hard a time as his family is having right now, luckily they don’t know that it could be much worse.

I have a pretty good idea of what his family is going through right now, having experienced it almost 6 months ago myself, however they will have a much easier time coping and moving on than we did.

Not knowing what condition Senator Kennedy was in during his final days, I do know that 6 days ago he wrote a letter to Massachusettes leaders asking that they expedite the process of replacing his seat in Congress, and not wait the mandatory 5 months after the seat is vacated (AKA after the Senator dies).

Several logical conclusions can be reached from this letter:

1) The Senator was mentally healthy enough less than a week before he died to acknowledge that the State of Mass deserves to have 2 representatives and that the current 5 month process doesn’t make sense

2) He was not expecting to die so soon (though he did not attend his sister’s funeral several days before), meaning he was self-aware (or was expecting to die soon, thus the letter)

3) He was lucid

In the week before  my mom died, I saw her blink several times. That was it. She wasn’t even lucid enough to swallow oatmeal.

In the six months since my mother died, the hardest part for me hasn’t been her absence as much as my inability to remember my mom as she was before her illness. There is much you, my readers (as well as closest friends), don’t know about my mother’s condition during the last 8 months of her life, information I will not share, but suffice it to say that even now, 6 months later, when I picture my mother in my mind, I cannot seem to find an image of her in which she is smiling.

And a non-smiling mom is NOT my mom.

During my darker times, in which I cry uncontrollably for days until I randomly stop, when I am asked what it is I need to feel better, my only answer is “to remember my mom as she was.” I am positive, without being or seeing a shrink, that my problem is moving away from the disease.

It’s not even her absence from major events in my life, or the fact that I have been missing her a lot lately. That doesn’t make me cry for extended periods of time (though I haven’t had a major life event yet, other than being with The Boy, so ask me when I get married or have a kid).

I sincerely believe that once I think of my mom and retrieve a memory of her pre-disease – in any situation, even yelling at me to clean my room when I was a teenager – that my healing will have truly begun. Once I can look at a picture of her where she is healthy and laughing and not see a stranger, or need to concentrate to convince myself that it’s really her, then I’ll be fine.

I’m not quite sure how articulate that last thought – I can look at a picture of my mother and just stare at it, and in my head I tell myself, “That’s my mom, that’s how I need to remember her, she was honestly like that for the first 30 years that I knew her,” but then myself will tell my head, “I’m sorry, head, that woman is a stranger. This is what she looks like” – and then a mental picture of my mom after her paralysis began pops into my head. It doesn’t even have to be from the hospital, just from the time that she lost her independence, AKA the third time I lost my mom.

So, yes, I feel so bad for the family of Senator Ted Kennedy. I can, unfortunately, say I know exactly what they’re going through, which is not something I am proud of, but at the same time I admit, I am incredibly jealous.

The image they have of their loved one is one of a lucid man who, in his final days, was still trying to get his affairs in order. I sincerely hope this fact will help them in their time of grief, though I doubt that it is a thought running through their heads at the moment.

 

Welcoming myself back into cyberspace

So I haven’t written in a couple weeks, and there is a good reason for it. Two, in fact. The first, as I mentioned just before I left, is that I went on vacation with The Boy to Spain for a week (and a day in Paris). It was wonderful. I cannot possibly put into words how much I needed this vacation, and the timing was impeccible.

As you can tell by my last post, I was having a rough time for the last few weeks before I left. I could not stop crying for more than 2 hours, which meant I couldn’t really go out and couldn’t go to my dance classes. Luckily for me, The Boy is very patient and understanding, which is wonderful, and thankfully, so are my friends (who, over the past 2 years, have already gotten used to me disappearing every now and then).

Despite the small fear that something may go wrong on the trip (seeing as many people don’t get along on vacations), all went perfectly well. We did tons of walking, eating, touristing, picture taking, concerting (Madonna and La Oreja De Van Gogh), museuming, and not so much resting, but that’s OK.

Before we left, I was seriously considering getting a prescription for anti-depressents, to the point where I was fearful of going on vacation because I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop crying.

Luckily for me, the timing was perfect and the vacation was so much fun. The Boy is a great tour guide (he’s from Paris so he knows the history, and enjoys telling the background of practically everything so much that it just makes you want to hear more), the concerts were so much fun, and we both seemed to move at the same pace.

I returned refreshed and ready to deal with life again, though I wasn’t sure that the calm that had finally come over me would remain. What if it was just the after effect of our vacation? But we’ve been back for just over two weeks now, and I am still doing well, other than being sick this weekend (not swine flu, thanks for asking )

The other reason I had resisted writing is that while writing is extremely therapeutic for me (it is, after all, the reason I began this blog), it is also very difficult. It usually takes a lot out of me emotionally, and I almost always cry when I’m writing. Therefore, since I haven’t been crying, I am almost fearful of writing because I don’t want to start again.

I’m posting a few pictures from our trip. I’m not posting any close ups of me and The Boy out of respect for his privacy; Those of you who are my friends on Facebook can see all of the pictures there.

I promise to get back to writing again. I still have the need to get things off my chest, and I have much left to say. Thanks for being such loyal and supportive readers.

Some pics from our trip:

Placa Catalunya

Batlle House (Gaudi)

La Sagrada Familia

At the Madonna concert

Champs-Elysées (Paris)

 

Time for a vacation!

I will most likely post about the trip when I get back, but I didn’t want anyone worrying when I was gone.

Tonight/tomorrow morning The Boy and I are flying to Barcelona for a week. We’re going to be in Blanes (Costa Brava) tomorrow because a Spanish band I love (La Oreja de Van Gogh) are performing there, and The Boy is so awesome that he insisted we go (he knew I really wanted to see them and they won’t be performing any other day that we’re there).

On Tuesday we’re going to the Madonna concert (strike a pose!) and on Wednesday we’re actually flying to Paris for a day and staying with The Boy’s friends (The Boy is originally from Paris).

I’m SO excited. My last vacation was the winter of 2006. This is SO overdue!

I’ll be back to posting when I get back, I promise. And as an update, I stopped crying 2 days ago.

Thanks everyone for all your comments!

 

Tears are the silent language of grief (French philosopher Voltaire)

Not so silent, actually.

Among all the crap that people always tell me, one of the most repetitive is that time will make things better.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am here to burst your bubble: Time is making things worse.

I’m not sure if it’s because the shock of my mother actually dying has worn off, or because I am finally coming to grips with her death, or because the thick vail of happiness brought upon by the novelty of my new relationship has begun to subside, but I can definitely assure you that things now are worse than they were a month ago.

Instead of crying less, I’m crying more. Instead of easing into a new reality, I feel like I am being repeatedly punched in the face. If 2 months ago my crying was “limited” to once or twice a day when I was alone (in the car/bed/bathroom), now it comes much more frequently and, unfortunately, not always in private.

I just can’t control it anymore. I try so hard not to cry next to my sisters and friends and grandparents and The Boy, that I end up exploding at some inopportune moment, like at last week’s Beer Tweet Up (sorry @ByDahWay, @Itzuvi, @YaelBeeri, @JeffPulver, and quite a few others, and thanks) or yesterday when I was out with friends. I hate crying to and in front of people. Hate it.

And I know that’s what everyone is there for, but they aren’t. Who wants to see someone cry all the time? And it’s not like it makes me feel better when I’m done. I don’t feel relieved, but I have the bonus of feeling bad for crying in public.

Before my mom died I was able to usually hold it in, with the exception of The One Who Calls Me Balls Balls. Not sure why, but the poor girl had to deal with my crying on more than one occassion (if crying in front of someone once is a novelty, imagine it happening repeatedly). So now that it is supposedly over, I don’t want to cry to her anymore. It isn’t fair to her, or anyone else.

I can’t cry to my sisters because, frankly, none of us are OK yet, and all I would get if I cried to one of them is that they would start crying, too. I can’t cry in front of my grandparents, which is sometimes incredibly hard, like earlier today when my grandfather asked me why I wasn’t smiling like I usually am, and then told me that my mother was an angel.

Yeah, not helpful at all.

Crying in front of them is not an option, seeing as they lost their daughter.

My dad is always away on business, and even though he’s been incredibly supportive, I don’t want to cry to The Boy. Who wants to be around that all the time? It’s bad enough that I can get moody (thankfully I don’t PMS). Everyone has their own problems, and they don’t need to have to deal with mine. And don’t tell me that’s what my friends and family and The Boy are there for, because, yes, that could be true to a certain extent – but it can’t be all the time.

So it leaves me fighting my tears on a regular basis and then just not being able to do so anymore. I cried at the tweet up, I cried at dinner with my friends yesterday, I cry before (and after) my ballet classes (which I have not wanted to go to even once since she died, but I make myself go anyway), I cried when I took my 4 year old nephew out for pizza (when he said, “Savta (grandma) Rocha’le is dead, right? I haven’t seen her in a long time” – and then he asked me why I was crying), and I cried when my dad brought letters my mom wrote to her best friend in the States when we were kids (tears came just by seeing her handwriting, not the actual content seeing as I was 8 when they were written), and tears are falling now, which can explain the completely inexplicable stream of consciousness that has made up this post, as opposed to the usual literally masterpiece that it is (kidding).

I find myself wanting to save the dumbest things of hers. Other than her letters, and her blog which I should really save in case it goes offline one day, I want to have her cookies cookbook (even though I bought another one) only because it says her name in it in her handwriting (which is exactly like mine), and I have her perfumes, but I can’t stand to smell them, and I have her jeans shirt with Looney Toons, not that I want to wear it – I had to shove it in the back of my closet because I couldn’t look at it, but I couldn’t bare the thought that someone else would have it – or that it would be thrown away.

And I’m scared to dial her phone number because I don’t know if it has been disconnected and I don’t want to ask my sisters or dad because if it hasn’t been disconnected, I don’t want them to disconnect it since I can’t imagine someone else answering her phone number, but if someone else is on the other line – I don’t want to know, because it won’t be my mom.

 

Weddings and anniversaries (not my own)

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Getting ready for the wedding

Yesterday I attended a wedding with The Boy. There were a few firsts associated with this particular wedding.

It was the first time I had been to a wedding since my mom died.

It was the first time I had been to a wedding with a boyfriend.

It was the first time I attended a wedding where I didn’t know a single person but the bride and groom (both of whom I had met once).

As I mentioned in my last couple of posts, I have been pretty down lately, for all kinds of reasons, and for no reason at all. I wasn’t so much in the mood for a wedding (where I knew no one), but figured, hey, free alcohol.

(Not really)

(Well, sorta.)

Thing is, yesterday was also supposed to be my parents’ 34th wedding anniversary. I, of course, knew immediately when The Boy told me about the wedding that it fell on my parents’ anniversary. It’s not like my family was going to be celebrating it anyway, but it felt a bit weird knowing I was going to be going to a wedding that day.

Though, come to think of it, maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing after all – my parents had a great marriage that would have definitely been celebrated yesterday had it not been cut short by glioblastoma. So, to me, the date is blessed. I only hope the couple who married yesterday will have as much love in their home as my parents had in theirs.

The ceremony was beautiful, and I’m not into the corny wedding thing at all. The bride was beautiful (in Israeli weddings the reception is before the ceremony, and the bride and groom arrive together and great the guests as they arrive), the music was nice, it wasn’t too humid (though my hair begs to differ), and the rabbi was funny.

I found myself, as the bride’s parents walked down the isle, forcing myself not to think about the situation I was in. Every time my brain had the audacity to shift over to less-than-pleasant thoughts, I internally beat myself up and literally blanked out my brain. I don’t quite know how to explain it, maybe it’s something similar to the meditation I learned back when I was taking martial arts classes, but I literally cleared my brain of everything.

Because if I wouldn’t, instead of seeing the ceremony itself, I would think of the fact that my mother won’t be there if I get married. And that would make me think of other related issues, such as wedding invitations. Wedding invitations list the parents of the bride and the parents of the groom. Would only my father’s name appear on the invite? Would my mom’s too? Would it be following by z”l (RIP in Hebrew)? If he remarries at some point, would her name be on the invite? Is there even a correct answer?

I actually had a lot of fun, once the actual ceremony was over and I could concentrate on eating (I was done drinking since I was driving). I danced my first slow dance since 8th grade (I’m almost 32) and found out that you can, indeed, forget how to dance.

And I dance ballet.

We did the eat, drink, dance, and socialize thing, and it was actually tons of fun, especially given the state we were both in last week. Other than watching the bride and groom’s parents dance on the dance floor (another reminder of something we’ll miss), my mom’s absence from the rest of my life, including a wedding that I may one day have, was not as felt as it was during the ceremony.

It’s a good thing I’m all for eloping.

 

A taste of my own medicine (which I knew sucked to begin with)

(Have you voted for Daughter of Cancer as the Most Inspirational Blog today?)

The Boy texted me on Sunday night to tell me his grandfather had just died (unexpectedly).

My heart dropped.

My first thought was “Poor Boy.”

My second thought was “Poor Boy’s Mother” who I love dearly (his family is amazing).

My third thought was “I’m not sure I’m ready to enter a cemetery again.”

My fourth thought was “I am so selfish.”

I called The Boy immediately when I saw the text message (I was in a ballet class so he knew my phone would be on silent mode). He was on his way to his grandfather’s house, and I had no idea what to say. All I could think of were all of the annoying things people would say to me when my mom was dying (and after she died) that never made me feel better and would only anger me. I told him that I’d like to come if he wants me there, but if he would rather be alone, I would completely understand. That’s all I could think of that wouldn’t piss me off.

Which only pissed me off.

Why was I taking my pain and deflecting it off of him? What if he needed to hear the things that I couldn’t hear?

I wasn’t sure how I would handle seeing his family in that situation. I had already met with his parents and siblings many times, so there wasn’t any discomfort of not knowing them, just not knowing how to help.

Thankfully, my instincts to help and impart my knowledge (otherwise known as efficiency derived from personal experience) kicked in, and when I arrived, all I could think of was helping them take care of what needed to be taken care of and help them organize (and hug them, because they are such great people). I was secretly thankful for the dark humor that had already become  a part of the situation, if only in that I could see that, much like my family, they use humor to deal with grief. Since I was the Queen of Dark Humor in the weeks leading up to my mother’s death, and the weeks following it, I was by no means uncomfortable (and able to add some of my own).

The funeral itself was OK. I could see a lot of what I felt at my mother’s funeral in The Boy and his mother (and siblings). There was one point, during the eulogies (which, thankfully, my dad didn’t allow at my mom’s funeral), where I began to cry, but I was standing behind The Boy and made a conscious effort not to sniffle, so I don’t think anyone noticed. That day and the next one, with the time I spent at the Shiva, went fairly well – his family, like mine, laughs a lot, so it wasn’t as bad as I had initially feared.

However, the past few days have been very difficult, first and foremost because of the profound affect they have had on The Boy. I’m not used to my mood being altered directly by someone else’s, but I’m told it’s natural. The knowledge that there is nothing I can do or say to help him feel better raised so many issues for me.

Other than a bit of regression back into my personal depression, for which I feel profoundly guilty as this was not my grief to hijack, I found myself thinking back to the months leading up to my mother’s death, as well as the the time immediately following it. I knew how helpless my friends felt at the lack of ability to help me, but, until this week, it was 100% knowledge, 0% experience. I could imagine it, but I couldn’t feel it, and now I could. And it sucks.

I keep finding myself thinking “What would I want to hear? What would I want people to do?” But I just don’t know. The Boy and I have known each other for over 3 years, but we have only been together for 2.5 months (more or less). I was alone when I went through the whole ordeal, and I am happy I was.

I don’t know how I would have been able to balance a relationship with my sadness. I don’t know if I would have been able to let someone be there for me.  I don’t know if I would have pushed him away.

So now I am faced with a new challenge, and I’m frightened of not being there enough, or being there too much. I don’t want to be pushy, but I don’t want him and his family to think I don’t care. I want to be able to help them as much as they need, but I don’t want to impose on the time that they need to be together as a family, alone. I want them to understand that I know exactly what they’re going through and how they are feeling, but I don’t want to take away from their pain and make it my own.

I don’t want to be selfish.

But I am.

Because regardless of what they are feeling and going through, and the fact that it is their mourning process and not mine, I am still going through my own, and while I can usually push it aside, I can’t help but be thrown back into my own sadness as I see them in theirs.

 

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Thanks for reading, everyone!

Talia

 

Changing speech patterns: A new language

It is obvious to everyone, as it was to me, that the death of my mother would bring many physical changes, such as giving away her clothes and her absence, as well as psychological changes, such as the sadness, depression, and sense of loss.

What I didn’t realize, and I think most don’t, is that the death of a parent specifically also brings another change: A change in speech.

I actually noticed this change before my mom died; It started when she was admitted to the hospice. At the time, the change in speech felt very awkward.

Was I going to my dad’s house, or my parents’? On the one hand my mother was still alive. On the other, she was no longer at home.

Did I have a parent or parents? If a parent is not able to talk to you or give you advice, are they still actively a parent?

Should I have said “his” or “theirs?” My mom was no longer living there, but she was a part of the apartment. She designed it. It’s her furniture, her look, her history. Saying “his” sounds like my mother was being deleted from the conversation, but saying “theirs” sounds irrational since she was no longer there. It no longer had her smell, so is it still her apartment? Was calling it “his” apartment being disrespectful to all the years that she was there?

Should I have spoken of my mom in the past tense or should I have remained in the present? There was no more present. The only “present” we had left was the wait. A mother who barely opened her eyes, didn’t know who we were, and didn’t understand what was going on around her. “My mom likes Fitness cereal.” Does she like Fitness cereal, or did she like it? Which speech pattern is more incorrect?

It doesn’t actually matter which tense you use, or if you use the plural or singular form, because either way it would bring you down. If you say “they” you think you should say “him.” If you say “him” you think you should say “them.”

I still have the same speech pattern issues now. It’s easier, because she is, in fact, gone. But it doesn’t make the speech changes any easier.

Do I do my laundry at my dad’s or at my parents’?

Am I going to my dad’s for dinner or my parents’?

Do my grandparents live a floor above my dad or above my parents?

Sometimes I momentarily forget. It’s not like you can do a Find-Replace in your head. I am going to Barcelona with The Boy next month, and once we had the tickets, he said he would research online and I told him, “Great! And I’ll talk to my mother, she knows where we should go.”

We heard crickets.

At least I don’t have to worry about deciding if I should talk about her in the past or present.