In a little under seven hours from now, I will be another year older. Thirty-four years ago, the sun rose as I left my mother's womb... to celebrate our birthdays together. Tomorrow will mark the first time we will be physically incapable of sharing that day.
I'll be spending the morning in the cemetery, as long as the sun shines as promised. I am grateful that I will have a place to visit this time round, as it made Mother's Day all the harder knowing my mother's body (and likely her spirit) remained in limbo. Despite a spring that arrived with the calendar for once (five weeks early, weather-wise), the cemetery didn't open until May 1st, and my sister was unavailable until the end of May. So my mother was buried May 31st, two months and ten days after she passed away.
I thought that ritual would provide some closure for us all, bring me back some of the lightening I first felt after her death. But alas, it did not. The inertia that has been dragging me for all the years of her illness - a mistaken idea of my soul that inaction would stop the progress of time - still drowns me, keeps me from properly moving on. The short Anglican graveside ceremony (shared by myself, my sister, my husband and our infant son, her husband, two friends, one of her brothers and one of her sisters) seemed like an non-event to me, almost. My sister and my mother's husband, both, along with my uncle, broke down in tears, but I was almost dry-eyed. As in the viewing room at the funeral home, I could hardly associate this fancy box, and what was surely inside, with what I knew to be my mother. This is a mixed blessing: I could comfort others and be strong for them, but also wonder when I might find the breathing space in my life to properly process this loss, and what it might mean.
The only proper peace I get might be said to be found in church. I left it long ago, around the age of twelve, when I found it easier to believe in Santa Claus than in all the dogma found in the testaments old and new and the many layers added over the millennia. Coming back after all these years (Christmas & Easter visits notwithstanding) is rather odd, but important. I can't say I agree with everything being said (nor can I say I understand all of what's going on), but it may come.
I'll add more later (it's 1:30 am now), of happier times, and gardening.
P.S. The above picture is 30 years old today... My wonderful fire engine cake centre-stage (thanks Dad), with (L-R) myself, my Grandmother Thornton, my Mom, my sister Jane in her lap, and my Grandfather Thornton (who died two years after this was taken).
