I’ve started this temporary little blog to avoid more overflowing instagram captions, honestly, and to have someplace to put and a reason to finish the half-completed thoughts that populate my notes app. In other words: to share, but differently than I have before. ‘Different’ is the key word there, because one of the main things I’ve needed to do in the wake of my mother’s death* is to make everything around me in some way different. Most of the shifts are subtle and maybe only noticed by me, but each one helps to mark the ‘before’ and the ‘after.’ I’m in the ‘after’ now — this new country I always knew I’d have to find my way around someday but never thought I’d encounter as soon or as suddenly as I’ve arrived here. I’m disoriented and heartbroken to be here (‘before’ was so goddamn good, I never would have left if any of this was a matter of choice) but I am here, undeniably. So. Here I am.
Some other things about ‘after’: as I start to learn my way around my grief, I’ve found in it this huge permission to be as fully as I can in any given moment, to follow each impulse. (The worst thing happened and somehow I’m still here, how could I move forward in any other way?) Maybe it helps that I work in ministry, so I feel particular space and permission to understand learning my grief as my work, now and likely forever. Everything I’m writing is fundamentally for me, to help me understanding and make meaning out of the biggest thing I’ve ever experienced (my love for my mother). I’m sharing it because feeling seen in that love and feeling like I might be able to make some beautiful things out of it are huge sources of solace right now.
Thank you (the imagined, unspecific you who I imagine might one day read this, since I have in fact put it on the internet) for being here, for offering your witness to my process of figuring out the ‘after.’ It really does mean the world.
with so much love,
Rose
* For clarity and time-keeping’s sake: my mother died on April 2nd. Typing those words mostly still feels impossible, but here we are. We all (the beloved family she created) experienced her death with her. It was the hardest and most sacred thing I’ve ever done.