Black Hole Halo

5-31-09

My birthday this year is bittersweet. I am 36. My mom was 36 when she was diagnosed with cancer. After three years of battling it, from 4th grade to 7th grade for me, she died. She had just turned 39. I wrote this as I processed once again about this loss and its effect on me. I know that unless you've experienced this kind of loss at an early age, you may not understand what it is like. Maybe this will help you understand a bit of what it is like. At least what it is like for me.

I look at the world through the tint of loss.

Loss that has damaged me, informed me, shaped me.

I may be happy and enjoying myself with friends, but loss lurks, my shadow. It never lets me forget my orphanism. There is a piece of me that continually feels lost, afraid, panicked, saying:

where is she?
where is home?
where is safety?
where is the one who loved me best?

My decisions are informed by my memories of what she liked, hated, was annoyed by, and celebrated.

I stand on the foundation of my mother, and am enveloped always in the cloud of her loss too early, when I was yet unformed, when I needed her, through years of missing her attention, her attentiveness, her smile and color and brilliance, the way she ate mangoes in the sunshine and ran her hands through my hair. (oh, her hands)

How do I explain this to others without sounding crazy? What I say here doesn't talk of all the hurt & pain & horror she caused me. I am writing today about her emblematic role as Mother, as source, as life-giver, as door-opener, as nurturer, as encourager, as permanently present, unshakably tied to me.

I lost my sense of home when she died, the little sense of it I had.

The sense that clung to the two houses of my memory -- our dear Dad-built house on Blackdairy Road & the happily yellow 2-story we lived in when I got chicken pox. I only lived in each house for a short time. Otherwise, we lived in temporary shelters that never felt like home. Somehow, though, these houses gave me a sense of home, of sturdiness, of security, of family, of togetherness, of connection.

The yellow house itself seems to me to rise up & put its arms around me & around the family & bless us with its sturdy roof & walls & floor & fence & trees. A talisman against the evil spirits that took over my mother like the ones that tormented Saul. The house speaks of safety & peace. It lived directly opposite the school I went to. I came home every day for lunches of soup & sandwiches with mom and I had a backyard with a swing to play & daydream in.

I ask myself:

Will I feel less lost when & if I one day own a house & put down deep roots & make it mine all over & thoroughly?

Will I feel less bereft when & if I marry & finally feel that someone else & I have a life-long connection of support & commitment & encouragement & thriving?

As one guy friend said so long ago,
'most of your problems would be solved by a long-term committed relationship.'

So right.
My mom was my first love relationship.
There is a part of my psyche that knows she should be around for the highlights of life, for milestone birthdays, for PMS, & so much more. But she slipped off to the country that I can't travel to until death or Jesus' return. And that deep soul loss resounds in my voice whether I'm talking out loud or just talking in my head. That loss colors every sight I see. That loss scents & texturizes my world.

My spirit - that child within - still sobs & is looking for her mommy.

The grown woman is still somber & looking for home.