I didn’t know it was even possible to feel such unbound grief. I feel like have thousands of acres and millions of miles of black grief radiating from the deepest part of me.
I’m having flashbacks of when I was 4 years old & feeling despair and hopelessness because my mother wouldn’t take care of me. I felt helpless hearing her screamed at during her many fights with my stepdad.
I see myself, tiny feet, walking into my bedroom and setting my alarm clock and laying out my clothes for head start knowing she was probably unconscious in the living room. The whole memory is shadowy and muted in color.
I feel so much grief and now I’m remembering that when I was little how acutely I felt the weight of impending consequences to my mother if I didn’t go to school. It would mean her issues would become apparent & that I would miss out and be delayed in a necessary step of my life. At 4, I understood that educational delay for me would have serious consequences and whether she mothered me or not I would be responsible enough to get myself ready for school, walk to school at the end of our driveway and come back home only to pull a chair up to the sink & wash dishes because that was my assigned chore….at 4. Then she would at least run my bath because I couldn’t figure out the hot and cold water knobs and I wasn’t strong enough to turn them.
The entirety of my life has been spent in dread of her death because she was as dangerously irresponsible as she was charming & fun to be with. I loved her with fiber of my being. But the only memories I have of her are of her leaving me. I’ve felt her leaving my entire life & when she died the horror of it felt logical.
I still feel that longing for my mama. And the pain of her leaving. Like she always did. Except this time she’s not out orbiting somewhere soon to return when s*** hits the fan.
She was epic in so many ways. So cool in so many ways. Unique. Such a fiery, tiny little feminine force. But, she was nearly intolerable for as much as anyone wanted so much to hang on to her. A walking conundrum who wouldn’t allow you to get enough of her. To want more time with her would necessarily mean to want to feel wounded because to be close to her was to be wounded. But wow could she make you laugh, make you feel beautiful, important, special, unique, valuable. I think these were her kind of projections and that the pain she caused so often wasn’t anything she was actually fully aware of. She was never malicious or ill intentioned. She just couldn’t live her life in a manner that wouldn’t cause pain.
I always knew that when she died her death would haunt me in unimaginable ways because of the complexity of who she was as a human. Amazing, magical, etheric, untamed, untouchable, mysterious, funny, and absent.
The Catalyst 
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