Mom's passing

 
I'd like to use this journal to periodically process some of my feelings about losing my mom a week ago. Mom made it 10 11:50 PM on April 16; ten more minutes and it would have been my birthday. I kind of wish it had been my birthday, because it would have felt like things had come full-circle, and I don't like knowing that not only did I lose her, but that I then had to immediately go through my first birthday without her. I will miss her playful birthday teasing, "38 years ago today I was heading to the hospital...!" Every year, every birthday.
My DS friends and community have been tremendously supportive, and I don't have the words to show my appreciation. So many of you have kept in me prayers and sent notes to me, and some of you even provided flowers for her memorial. The donations many of you have provided (and will provide) will go to support our spiritual healing retreat next year, and I hope you will all come back!

Losing my mom has been hard because she was a good mom and I had a happy childhood. I don't have awful stories of turmoil from my youth. I never had to hide from a parent's anger, I never had to fear my friends' seeing things happening in our home. I think that losing a good parent might be harder because it ends 39 years of memories I want to keep.
Mom made sure that my sister and I believed that the purpose of life is to uplift the worth of all other life, not to accumulate status and products. As such, she instilled in us a commitment to peace and healthy social change for all. To her, this wasn't a political maxim, it was what guided her to hug someone who was crying, befriend the sad, uplift the self-hating, and include the outcast. Never once did she turn away from another's need because it was too painful for her to bear; she was not selfish with her spirit like that. While many people around her attracted more attention and glamor, mom just humbly perevered, actually doing the work of loving, healing, and allying with the bruised and brokenhearted of the world.
Her death was a good death, which may sound strange until I explain it. Before her surgery, we had chances to express ourselves to her and to hear her words to us. My son, River, hand-wrote her a letter to her the night before her hospitalization that told her how joyful she made him feel, that he will always remember their jokes, that he doesn't love her because of the things she buys him but because she helps him like himself more, and that she is the silliest old woman he'd ever met. None of us has that "I wish I could have said..." regret.

 
Mom never recovered from the ICU, and wasn't even aware of the passing of time. On Thursday, April 15, her breathing tube was removed and ver health signs were improving. She was happy and had visitors. On Friday, her deteriorated systems collapsed, and she was sedated. When she died, then, she was in no pain, surrounded byher best friends and husband, after a final day of happy visiting. She had even disclosed that if she ever came to this point in her health, this would have been her choice too.
One of mom's final acts at home was to gather and discard journals she never wanted us to find. These dated to her time in therapy for depression when I was very young. Mom felt useless and insecure about herself, and became angry easily with my hyperactivity, and she took my own mercurial personality personally. In counseling, she wrote and processed her feelings, and to this day I don't remember turmoil or distress in my childhood. I suspect these are the journals she destroyed so that we would never be burdened by the discovery of her depressed thoughts, especially since she didn't feel that way anymore. Mom was truly happy, and was the first to affirm the fullness and richness of her own life.
I don't know how to respond to her loss. I'm confused because I don't feel as distraught as I think one would. I'm not unhappoy about the circumstances of her death, and I don't feel like we had unfinished business to reconcile, I just miss her. Mom helped me see that ours is not the only pain that matters, and that our responsibility is to care for and embrace the life around us.
 
More later.