Sudden Upsurges of Grief

There are times that you expect to be rough. Holidays, for sure, especially the first one after they're gone. Birthdays, anniversaries, the anniversary of their death. You prepare yourself for those, as best you can; you insulate, become more reflective, make sure you buy enough wine.

But the truly hard times aren't those times after a few years have gone by. It's the other times, the times that sneak up on you, tiptoe in and stab you in the heart when you least expect it.

My therapist says they're called Sudden Upsurges of Grief, or SUGS, and even after 22 years, I still have them.

Just like I did when I was 19, and was shopping for school clothes at the mall, and seeing girls shopping with their mothers made me lose my shit, right there in the middle of a sunny August afternoon at the mall.

Like I did when Trout was a tiny baby and slept all the time and I didn't know what to do with myself.

At BlogHer, several of the bloggers brought their family members with them. This isn't a big deal - I did the same. But more than one blogger brought her mother with her to assist with care of her little ones. And seeing them together, hearing the women who were presenting on BlogHers Act mention Liz's Mom's reaction to the gathering, was a quite unexpected SUG, and I had to fight back tears.

I don't know how my mother would have felt about the conference. I knew her as my mother, the mother to a child, and not as a woman, with thoughts and feelings and understanding about the world that to me, as a child, a mother didn't have, because she was all about me, right?

I've always wanted to know. How she felt about breastfeeding, if she would have gone back to college, how she coped with my father's mental illness, did her political slant change over time. What was her favorite color? How did she handle my father's long absences when he was in the military and my sister and I were babies? If she were on her own, how would she live her life?

Who was she? Outside of a wife, a mother, a daughter.

I want to know the grandmother she would have been, the woman she was. Now, 22 years later, at the age she was when she died, I still don't know.

And it's heartbreaking that I never will.

Comments

[Mom101]

I am trying to think of the right comment and words fail me. Just that I hear you and I know how very fortunate I am.

[amaras_mom]

While I do not even pretend to truly understand your pain, I wanted to share with you a bit of my story.

My mother was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer when I was 8 months pregnant with my daughter. And while she has far surpassed the 8 month diagnosis doctors had given her, I know deep in my heart that Amara has been cheated. I know we are blessed that my mother is still with us. But I know she is not the mother...grandmother...woman she once was. The tumor has eaten away at a lot.

So I can feel your grief as I read your post. And if I could, I would put your hand in mine to tell you I'm here for you.

[angi]

I am so sorry that you no longer have your Mom here with you. I can not imagine how hard that is at times, and I am sure that nothing I can say would make the pain go away, but know that I am reading & thinking of you ((hugs)) Momma!