One Year Later

A year ago yesterday, in a brief break in the rain, we buried my sweet Momma at Arlington. We had said goodbye over 10 weeks before that on a cold night in a cold hospital and again four days later, in a giant church that was not our home, surrounded by all those who were so familiar to us but seemed so out of place in the surreal setting.

Everyone told me it would take a year. Hold on for a year. Get through the first round of Christmases and birthdays, see each season change, just knock off those first 365 days.

For me, this weekend seems like the full year. Yes, it is actually 14 months. Those months between death and burial, though, were almost a pause in grief. We moved forward - we had the first round of holidays, the first family birthdays - we went back to Georgia. To work. To the inertia of the everyday. At the same time though, we were still in the very formal, prescribed stages of planning grief. There were calls to Arlington to understand the burial process. Limos to be secured. Restaurant reservations. Flights. Flower arrangements.

Our calendars for 2014 were broken into two segments - before Feb. 21st and after. It presented this weird dichotomy where we couldn't wait to just get through it. Just have it be done. But at the same time, how terrifying was it to have it be done? Of course, had we never gone through with the burial
or had we buried her in Poquoson shortly after her death, she would have been just as gone as she is now. But planning the burial - latching onto one more event that was totally focused on her - who she was, what she meant to us, how much she was loved - gave us one more connection to her as so many rapidly and quickly disappeared.

Bowden cousins in DC

And then, before we knew it, we were in DC. Cousins and aunts and old friends from every corner of the country. We reconnected. We hugged and laughed and cried, with her presence there looming. When we had finished saying all we felt we had to say, we dispersed again. Each of us returning to our own little corner of the world with our own private grief to burden in our own way. Then it was the real year - the real grieving - began.

Thanks to Steph for brightening
our Christmas. 

Now that year has passed. I haven't been back to Arlington since we said goodbye but will feel the urge when something monumental happens or when the seasons change or when I long to just rest my head in her lap and recap the day. Albert has been back. So has Daddy. One of her nieces. Two sweet and precious sorority sisters surprised me with visits to her grave on Mother's Day and Christmas. A year out, though, I don't know that I actually want to go back. I am not sure I want to see the finality of the gray slab in the midst of so much sadness. Though again, regardless of whether or not I go, her loss is so, so final.

The finality of all, I think, is the hardest part. Get through that first year, everyone said. And we did. We survived it. As a family, we came out a year later a little bit stronger and a little bit closer. So, that is done and now I want it to all be done. I survived the year. I paid my penance. Now, I would like my mom back please. I don't want to keep doing this for 50 more years.

As we move forward from the one year mark, the gap between us having her and not having her widens and grows in unimaginable ways. I think of my sweet B, how Momma adored her, and all I can think now is.. she has had more Christmases without her Ganma than with. How can that be possible? How can it be possible that all the good that is still left to come will come without her by us? That we have a whole year and counting of memories that don't involve her quick wit or easy laugh?

A year later, it doesn't sting quiet as much. I don't lose my breath when I remember she is not there for me to call. I don't wince when I catch pictures of her out of the corner of my eye or when new friends ask if we will visit her for the summer. Laughing feels a little less effortless and guilt-laced. Crying has become less frequent while it's healing nature a little longer lasting. Yet at the same time, the emptiness remains. The strangeness of being a family of origin of four rather than five, of planning trips with just my precious dad, of having no one to celebrate on her birthday is still very much alive.

A year later, and I straddle the needs of being a daughter so deeply in mourning and a woman, sister, wife, friend, and mother who doesn't want to just be the sad one who lost her mom. I want my relationships back the way they were... without the whispered questions and sad eyes. At the same time, I still feel so very much that I am living this every moment of every day it seems natural to me that everyone else would be too. Just as if I was pregnant or we were moving or any other life change - I would expect this to be on everyone's lips. But how exhausting it is to constantly be grieving.

So, a year later, here we are. In the past 12 months, we have seen heartache and pain. We have laughed with pure joy. We have made inappropriate "your momma" jokes and had our hearts broken when those closest to us lost their own moms. We have welcomed new life and rejoiced with our friends. We have mourned that our sweet Momma has not seen our own babes grow. We have prayed and clung close to our faith. We have held tight to our memories and pictures and sweaters that still smell like her.

And so we face year two. The gap between her being here and her not continues to widen. We move on. We love and laugh and serve like she would have. Like she would have wanted us to do. Happiness starts to outweigh the sorrow. And maybe during year two, I will go to Arlington. See her final resting place, rub my hands on the cold stone, lay her favorite tulips on the grass, and just be. Be thankful for the time I had with her. Thankful for all she taught me and how she loved me. Be proud of who she was to so many people. Just be with her, for a little of year two.