I realize that’s true, that I’m feeling that specific pain for that reason — and then I remind myself that I believe that a form of consciousness exists after death, and that ancestors still know us and exist alongside us, just in a form that’s pretty beyond my understanding. I remind myself that I’ve believed some version of this for a long time, not just because I need to feel that it’s true now, and that all of the traditions and cultural practices I’ve found most wisdom in teach some version of this understanding of death. I remind myself that most of my ancestors (the ancient ones, the ones that lived in the world for so many generations before colonization and whiteness and modern estrangement from the cycles of life) seem to have believed this, and that the things that changed those beliefs (colonization, whiteness, modern estrangement from the cycles of life) are things I want to undo, tear down, find a way out of.
I remind myself of all of those things and I do believe them, I really do. I do really believe that there are no memories actually without Mom because she’s here with us, intimately very with us, existing in my own consciousness and in this different form.
And then I let myself feel what I’m feeling anyway.
And it’s still really, really painful to make new memories without Mom.
Thank goodness the thing I believe above all else is that many, many things can be true at the same time.