I’m trying to imagine how my Mom would have begun this blog post, and I know exactly what she would have done, so say it with me— FUCK.
And now we shake it off together, just let it roll off our backs and start fresh. We put on some Bruno Mars and pour chardonnay. We quote Bridget Jones’s Diary and share a little bit of gossip. AKA, I start spilling my own secrets to her, and she listens raptly, and tells me, You need to write that down. She procures a story of her own, we laugh til we’re in tears, and we totally figure out what to do next, because she knows me better than I know myself. And then we clink and drink. When I was a kid, it was the same dynamic— different refreshments. She was always there to listen, to comfort, to advise, to laugh, to rant, to validate, to just talk. I can remember many of those conversations from when I was so small. They’re the kind that stay with you forever. ---- In my experience thus far, grief is like a giant white slab of marble. It looks, feels, and is formidable. It looks like, feels like, and is, nothingness. And yet, it reveals itself as you take your hammer and chisel to the surface and begin to crack it. There is something deep within that impossibly large weight, and the only way to find it is through. You can’t pick it up yourself and smash it— it’s too heavy. It’s much, much, too heavy. Let me just say, I have no idea what I’ll find yet. Acceptance, fine— anyone will tell you— but that’s just a word to me right now. I don’t think I’ll know what it feels like for a long time. And it may be that I never learn the secrets of how to find it, but man... I’m looking for them. This stems from the wisdom of my mom’s MO— the art of curiosity. What’s next? What’s behind that door? What would happen if I opened it myself? Futile question, she’s already burst through it— and has made a room full of new friends behind it. I feel like a baby in a high chair as my family sings happy birthday, talking about grief like this. I’m new here, but I’m surrounded by the village that will always show up for me. I guess it’s not really in my nature to not talk about something. Or at least, to not write about it. Another art form that I absorbed from my mom, who sparkled with such a natural, authentic wit. I’m not sure if it was by osmosis or magic, but the observance of her sheer talent for the trade supplied me with a lifetime of fuel for the fire. We were alike in so many ways, and this one, she told me, made her heart sing. We would go to coffee shops together and blog to our hearts’ content while we sipped cappuccinos, and 86ed any notion that dessert wasn’t lunch. She was such a prolific writer; an ideas woman, through and through. There are over a decade of postings, several times a month sometimes. They are quick, rambling, insightful, intelligent, caring, and funny. They have always read just like she spoke. I’m so grateful she penned even a fraction of her beautiful mind in ink. My mom was always a teacher at heart, but she also led her entire life by example; and so I learned to give and be grateful, to love and accept it in return, to wonder and find out, to listen and write. We wrote a blog together about a trip to Italy a few summers ago, and batted a name back and forth for a while, before landing on Non Parla Italiano. My mom actually did speak Italian. I did not. She was the belle of the ball in every restaurant, as she deserved to be. Italian men swooned at her charm, and how adept she was at conversing with them, despite not always being confident in her abilities. She was always learning. If a word foreign to her vocabulary presented itself in a book, or on the nightly news, she would scamper over to her dictionary with the same glee as if Colin Firth had just rung the doorbell. She did not allow opportunities for growth to escape her. How graceful can you be? Never seeking attention, but being the one everyone gravitates to in a room. Always asking, never assuming. Always teaching, never demanding. The woman who lights up the room with her smile, and brings down the house with her laugh. Every day, it's so hard to believe that it's real. Nearby memories like Christmas, New Year’s Eve, my birthday— she was very sick at this point, but she was still laughing. She was still smiling, even through the pain, because that is what an optimist does. Not because she expected things to turn around at that point, but because she saw the good. She appreciated the joy she’d been given, and had created for herself, in the span of a life too short, that was lived ever-so-fully. Although the end was near, she was surrounded by family, friends, and the biggest love this world has to offer. She tended to those relationships her whole life, and they continue to bloom for her.
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