The courage to let go

In this day and age when everyone has a cell phone to capture video and still images, it’s easy to take that everything access for granted.  I look around my mom’s house and I see photographs everywhere.  It’s like watching a moment in time captured on a piece of paper for eternity.  My father-in-law teased me about taking pictures when my son was born.  He said it was the only way I could tell that the baby was real.  I realized later that my pictures helped me transition back to work.  Pictures of my son were everywhere.  I’ve updated those photos and now both of my sons stare back at me from photograph taken at various stages of their short life.  

Saw an old friend today and talked to her for a while in my old bedroom which will be my bedroom again.  That’s the thing about an old friend, doesn’t matter how much time passes or how much experience lie in between, you pick up as if all that time and experience didn’t come between.  You don’t ignore it, just appreciate the fact that your connection to this person is so strong that the time and distance doesn’t matter.

I’ve always had a less than “ideal” relationship with my mother.  I never told her my secrets or cried on her shoulders over broken hearts, or felt the need to turn to her for advice.  In short, I always had very little patience for what I felt was her lack of tolerance for me.  As I sit beside her day after day and watch her swiftly slip away, I’m filled with so many emotions.  

I look at myself and her and I’m filled with guilt.  Each day I’m working out and my body is becoming stronger while hers is getting weaker.  I’m filled with regret thinking of all the time I missed when I could have had a relationship with her.  But the truth is that she and I are simply too alike to be very different.  Neither one of us are particularly over the top sentimental but when we love, we love with everything we’ve got.  We’re stubbornly loyal and protective towards those we love.  We push ourselves past our limit rather than admit we can’t do it.  My brother said to me a while back that I was exactly like her and I could take that however I want.  

As I sit beside her, watching her sleep sitting up in her bed (it’s the only way she can breathe easily enough to sleep) terrified that she might fall over in her sleep and crack open her face, I’m content.  My heart is bleeding in my chest and my brain hurts trying to understand this.  But I am content to be simply in the presence of this woman who gave me life, whose heartbeat echoed mine for nine months.  I’m going to miss her when she’s gone.  Hell, I don’t know how I’m going to live in her house and walk in through the front door and know calling out for her is not an option.  

I went up to her old bedroom the other day.  My dad cleaned out a lot of stuff upstairs to make room for us.  I was shocked when I went into her room and everything was gone.  All the perfumes, the accessories, lotions, the pictures, and the various knick knacks she had lying about everywhere, they were all gone.  This is the beginning of how the house will look once she’s gone.  I can’t picture this house without her or removing traces of her from this house.  

Earlier I went into her hall closet and took a look through her coats.  I have complained for as long as I can remember that this woman has too many coats.  I only ever had two at a time if I was lucky.  I’m partial to my favourite and that’s that.  I lost my coat in Connecticut earlier this year.  So I found one of her coats that might do the trick for the heavy winter days.  It’s one of those down things that reach mid-calf and have a hood with faux fur.  It’s totally not the kind of coat I would wear.  But it fits and it’ll do the job.  She just watched me while I watched myself from the mirror.  

She’ll be gone soon.  Then no one will remain who understand us.  I am convinced now that she understood me better than I understood myself.  Without her, I never would have become me.  Funny, I never thought that she would turn out be my muse.  This is me, slowly accepting that I have to let her go.  I’m accepting it, I haven’t let go yet.  I’m working on that, I just need a little more time.