Grief Is Weird

 When you are separated by oceans and years, grief is bizarre. 

When you pray for a loved one's healing, yet the healing does not come in this life, it is even more bizarre.

You are devastated that they no longer walk this earth, but overjoyed at their release from pain and suffering. 

I haven't seen my stepmom (Mom, since I've never called her my stepmom - much to the confusion of anyone who has heard me talk about her) in 13 years. Not because of a falling out or anything traumatic - just...life I guess. We've had a full-on 13 years with four children, special needs, moving houses, changing schools, sort of FIFO-ing, and all the rest. Then we planned to go visit, but Covid-19. 

Her death isn't necessarily a shock, because she was ill. But not being able to say goodbye has kicked me in the heart, and I feel as though it might actually stop beating, if I give in to the emotion lingering behind my caffeine-infused facade. Of course it's okay to grieve, but the thing about it for me is that I still have people to manage. Appointments to schedule, Therapy to attend, Placement to sort out, a course to complete, Kids to organise - it doesn't stop, or even pause, even if my heart is in tatters. Grief does not understand that grieving the loss of my Mom means opening the grief scars I have from losing my Dad. The two of them are intertwined, and I've lost her, but I now have also lost both of them. 

I know Mom is in Heaven, whole and rejoicing. I know that she is with Dad, and I'm happy for that, which feels right and wrong at the same time. I feel guilty that I have this beautiful life, and it is hard to feel joy in my life but at the same time a deep sadness. How does that even work? 

But she never got to know her Aussie grandchildren, or know our life here. She never got to spoil them rotten, or pick them up from school, or have them sleep over. She would have loved doing all of those things, and that possibility is gone, and that hurts so deeply. 

I've never regretted moving overseas, because the life we have been able to build here is amazing. I miss my family of course, but I've not been able to grieve losses entirely, because for me, my family members are sort of frozen in time, along with all my memories. But today, living so far away just sucks, and there's no getting around that. 

So today, my grief looks like honouring my mom by - well, by Momming. by looking after myself to keep my children from feeling the way I feel right now before they have to. I will celebrate my 46th birthday, and not wish a single moment away. I will have bathroom chats with my children, offer up Christmas PJs, and I will tell that ridiculous spider joke all of the time, and drink coffee with my parents out of very large mugs every morning. I will laugh with every springtime dandelion, plant chrysanthemums (and keep them ALIVE, Mom!). 

XO, Sarah