I want to preface this post with a note that how I was feeling when I wrote this was through one stage of grief, when I felt like I was as low as I could get. These feelings have ebbed and flowed since I wrote it about a month and a half ago.

Before I worked with hospice patients, I went through a certification course that talked about loss and grief. The training told me what to expect in the families of those who were dying or had recently died. While I volunteered, I watched those families process their losses, mostly daughters having lost their elderly mothers.

Then, when my own mom died, a lot of people told me that the hard part would be later, after the funeral, after everyone had gone home. I didn’t really know what that meant, but accepted it as truth. They were right.

After loss, the mind works through the mental equation, which makes no sense.

My life – Mom = Insert variable here

Just like the calculus in my last Mother’s Day card to my mom didn’t make sense.

“I can’t imagine life without you and all you do for our family!”

Or

(My life + our family) – you = does not compute

But the last time I even imagined that calculus equation was before I had to face the reality of it. When it was still considered calculus, the math of what could be in some hypothetical circumstance, and not applied math–the math of what is happening in this circumstance. The physics equation including these variables isn’t just theoretical, and there was a concrete answer for it at the moment of the accident.

The things that I wish I could’ve anticipated, that grief has made me feel:

• I’m able to logically look at that very first equation and solve for the variable, such that “She’s just gone,” but my subconscious refuses to accept it. I startle myself daily with thoughts bubbling up from my subconscious like “You should text mom to tell her that” or every damn thing reminds me of her.
• I wonder if I talked about her this much before she died as I do now. I ask myself how annoying people probably find me constantly bringing her up.
• I feel like I’m getting really dark and twisty. The sadness and the loneliness of it is going to extend past just grieving someone I loved. Sometimes it bleeds into the rest of my psyche. I can feel it warping me, my self-image, everything. I sometimes feel terrible about myself, even though this has nothing to do with my capabilities or my accomplishments. Even though it’s just one person removed from my life, I feel infinitely more lonely.
• I have a really hard time with little, stupid things. I spiral into weird meltdowns over small stuff, and have to talk myself down from them. I made a wrong turn the other day while driving, and felt myself spiral into this helplessness meltdown that was totally ridiculous.
• I’m pretty good at the forward motion and day to day action. Going to work. Getting dressed in the morning, looking somewhat pulled together. Eating and sleeping. Exercise. And somehow it’s still surprising to me that, even though I’m eating healthy and working out daily, I still feel this shroud of deep depression over it all anyway. I guess the control freak in me can’t compute either.
• This has made all of my preexisting scars and wounds worse. Everything feels heavier. Finding meaning in any of it is hard, and sometimes I lean towards nihilism. Sometimes when I suddenly remember that she’s gone, like in line at the grocery store checkout the other day, I feel the sensation of becoming uglier inside.
• I feel so much self pity. Even though death is really the only certainty when you come into this world, and nobody escapes it, I feel like this pain is unique to me. I know it’s not, but it feels too sharp and too specific to me to escape the self-pity trap.