My mother died on Friday. It was sudden and unexpected - inasmuch as such a thing can be sudden and unexpected in an 81 year old woman. She was recovering from an operation from a new hip; if rehab wasn't progressing as rapidly as she might have liked, there was no indication whatsoever that she was in any particular danger. And then, suddenly, she was gone.
The suddenness of it, the absence of foreshadowing, makes it all seem so unreal somehow. As if it hasn't happened. And yet, as if it has always been so. It hasn't hit me yet, and yet at some point during the coming days, it assuredly will: The recognition that my mother, whom I loved so very dearly, is no longer with us. I seek solace, however, in the fact that she is no longer suffering from the pain that afflicted her for so long, or from the loneliness that she surely felt constantly in the two years since my father died.
Rest in peace, my darling mother.
The suddenness of it, the absence of foreshadowing, makes it all seem so unreal somehow. As if it hasn't happened. And yet, as if it has always been so. It hasn't hit me yet, and yet at some point during the coming days, it assuredly will: The recognition that my mother, whom I loved so very dearly, is no longer with us. I seek solace, however, in the fact that she is no longer suffering from the pain that afflicted her for so long, or from the loneliness that she surely felt constantly in the two years since my father died.
Rest in peace, my darling mother.