letting go

There are some things you can just never understand until you have been down that path for yourself. Being in love is one of those things. So is losing a baby, so is having a baby, having an addiction, being a survivor of any number of terrible things, and also, and now I know, so is losing your mom.

In the perfect world I would have a scrolling message board on my forehead which would right now read something along the lines of "Lost Mother. Fragile. Lost mother. Step lightly. Lost mother. Hug me." exhale.

sigh.

But I don't. The best I can do is hope that people talk about me so everyone kind of knows already and I don't have to actually say what happened because the words which tell what happened do not easily come out of my mouth.

When I took Evan with me to the chiro I asked Evan to tell the chiro while I used the bathroom just so I wouldn't have to hear myself say it either.

The closest thing you can get to that scrolling message board as a jew is this torn back ribbon you pin to your shirt. Some people wear it for the seven days of mourning we call shiva. But for some reason the rent-a-rabbi that did mom's service told us to wear it for 30 days. (I am thinking maybe he grew up orthodox. I'm too tired to look it up. You can if you want.)

So I was wearing the torn black ribbon on Day 9 when I took Josh to Massachusetts to a utopian friend's birthday party. And one of the other mom's who was hanging around asked me who was close to me who died and it turns out that she lost her mother a couple of years ago too. And I practically fell into her arms. And we talked all night. And I felt so instantly close to her because she knew exactly what I was feeling and thinking and she listened so well as I talked and talked and talked because some part of me is still trying so very desperately to make sense of all that happened and be okay with how she lived since her first surgery and how she died because she had to do something to fight the disease. And this other lady, having been where I am right now, had the patience and thoughtfulness to listen and listen and ask questions and be so very comforting and wonderful to me, a perfect stranger walking down that same devastating path.

I may have developed a girl crush on her.

But then right before she left, she asked us if we liked her new boobs. And having had already noticed (and also having silently filed that info away) that they were boobs of the totally fake variety, I got (surprisingly) all excited that her too big for her 0% body fat body new boobs were new and fake I yelled "Congratulations!" with more glee and sincerity than I could possibly type. It was like I had been called down to play Price Is Right or something. And then, feeling like I had met another soul mate on this planet, I immediately followed with a wide eyed "Did it hurt?"

And she sat back down so we could talk some more.

Comments

[danelle]

Are you getting my emails? Just checking...

[apathy lounge]

So sorry about your mom. Don't you hate it when you think you might be meeting a possible new friend and then there's a deal-breaking aspect to him/her that kills the whole thing? It's not the having of the fake boobs so much as just the part where she ASKS what people think.

[Laura]

I think it's great that you made a new friend.