Mom and Where She is

When I lost my mom this past month, I grieved for at first her in a way that came naturally to me - I was angry that she'd been taken from me, I was sad at having sat and watched her waste away until there was nothing left, and I was scared at the thought of a life without her. I felt a tremendous sense of loss, I'd lost her. We'd lost her. And for a while that's the only way I saw it.

But interestingly, as the days passed by and I continued to feel this way, simultaneously (and probably subsconsciously for a while) my brain started to amass little bits and pieces of information that slowly built up into an intelligible pile of perspective, through which I began to be able to see through, slowly - until it occured to me that there was more to her death than my loss, or anyone's loss, or anyone's fear or sadness. There was her light.

I shouldn't say was, because I mean is. That's what this piece is about, should you still be reading this (which means, most likely, you're not easily scared off by the occasional tortured metaphor or trite imagery, so please read on).

In the days and weeks that followed her memorial and visitation services, through which several hundred close friends and family gathered to honor her, lend support, and speak from the heart on her behalf, I started to reflect back on what was said, and by whom, and how many. I realized that each person who had spoken, regardless of the nature or duration of relationship with my mom, each speach carried a common, noticeable thread that made me smile, for a minute anyway. It was sort of threefold: "Janet helped me when no one else would" and "Janet loved me when no one else would" and "Janet gave her everything to everything she did." Being her daughter, and knowing who most of those people were, I was actually somewhat surprised, I think. Though I knew her to be nothing other than the most loving, helping, caring person on the planet, I had no idea she had coworkers, gardening friends, even an in-law (whose relation is too obscure to determine via google, so I won't and I'll just say "step-son-in-law's mom") who all felt the same way. I thought "how is this possible? I don't care that much about people... how did she manage to expend all that energy?"

It was then that more of the shiny pieces of the perspective pile started to come together, like little shiny crystals and pieces of sea glass, into a kind of reflective mosaic that began to reveal to me a different way of understanding who this woman was, the same woman I had assumed I understood better than anyone else in the world.

I'm not ashamed, I had underestimated her. I had assumed she was more like me, more guarded, less empathic, less loving, less willing to give everything for nothing. But I think I'm glad that I did, because it was only through this revelation I began to feel better about losing her - because I hadn't. None of us had.

The amazing mother who had raised two bratty kids into passably-functional millenial-adults (who mostly only argue over the comedic validity of various streaming netflix series or who gets to choose where we order from Uber Eats), the dedicated wife, music partner and later very close friend to my father, the proctective big sister to her family, the insanely hardworking professional woman, and ever-devoted wife to her second husband with whome she remained inseperable at the end -- these things all just describe the tip of the iceberg that was my mom's light. She poured it into her community garden, she enlightened the pages of the novels she shared with her book club, she wove it into every sweater and scarf and complicated cable knit patterned-ting that she could. And she did it just because it made her happy.

That kind of positivity, that kind of illumination and spirit once emitted into the universe does not go away. Until quite recently, I don't think it likely I'd have ever produced a sentence like the former one. However as a woman of science and champion of reason, I need only to point to the First Law of Thermodynamics to bolster this sentiment, namely "energy cannot be created or destroyed, energy can only be transferred from one thing to another."

And so, in conclusion I propose the following: Having now a more accurate understanding of the magnitude of positive energy my mom brought into the universe, it is reasonable to assume that every iota of said energy is still here, still with us, and still (as she would be) doing good for the sake of doing good.

That makes me feel happy. That makes me feel less alone. That makes me feel less horrified and angry at the sight of her on her last day, a body I didn't recognize and never would again, because she left her light with us. In the very end, when she could no longer talk to us or understand us, she kept the light going through her eyes until they closed and her light transferred onto the next place they were needed.

I know that this is true because her light is with me now. And I think it's with Matt and with Dave and my dad and probably hovering over her community garden plot trying to emit some extra rays to kickstart her herbs for the year. I know it's in all these places because (and though I cannot speak for the garden plot, per se) there has been darkness in each of them, and light was needed.

Like always, mom delivers.