Soul Mosaic

Painting by author

So what happened after Mom’s death?

I guess I expected that, like after Dad’s death, I would feel relief…or maybe more correctly, peace and serenity, given how it all ended.

While his aftermath was the relief of a threat finally extinguished, hers was the completion of caregiving done honorably. Though we parted with many unresolved things, I felt such peace at her transformation at the end…a kind of redemption from the rest of her life.

So I expected something more like: “It is done.” With both parents gone, and it being the end of that whole era, I should be able to “get over it,” “move on,” and “leave the past behind.” All those things people say, as if just the fact it is finally done means it is “over.” But nothing was further from the truth.

Instead, there was an intense explosion of a whole mess of emotions, ranging from love and grief, compassion and confusion, to anger, disappointment, abandonment, and back again to grief.