Since my mama died, I have avoided talking about her a whole lot. I don’t know why, but somehow its not been so easy talking.
Sometimes, she feels like some distant part of my past and at other times, it feels like it was just yesterday we were driving around town together.
This night I can’t sleep and I can’t stop myself from thinking about her. I decided to do something about it, so I picked up my phone to go through our chats on WhatsApp. The one thing I realize and I am grateful for, is that we did text a lot. So I have a ton of cherished messages up from the year I started using WhatsApp. I actually did because of her.
But what comes before that?
Meanwhile, the profile pic that has always shown on her WhatsApp display suddenly disappeared when I tried to click on the photo. I got the “profile photo removed” and a rush of sadness washed over me afresh. Maybe I should have just left it.
I wonder how long I can keep the messages and if there is some way I can save them all.
I logged onto Facebook, and I found more messages. We also chatted on messenger, but not as much as I would have liked. There are several gaps and days in between and I lie awake on my bed wondering what was happening on those days we did not text.
The messages I am going through has brought back a lot of memories of events some of which I have totally forgotten about. At this point, there is no stopping the tears and I am not a crier, but I think I have gone soft these days.
I see people who constantly talk about their loved ones and people who berate them and feel it’s high time they got over it. I think maybe it’s because those people think people who have lost loved ones, write or talk about them to fish for sympathy.
I don’t know, but I feel its not sympathy I really need when I talk or write about my mum, but then again, I don’t know what I really need. Or maybe I am sad that the world went back quickly to business as usual and I need to remind them that my mum is no more.
I feel like I have not really grieved for her and I have used constant activity to cover up and one day the dam is going to break.
I don’t know if it ever gets better or if it will ever get better. I don’t think anyone fully recovers from the loss of loved one.
Somedays it may seem like you are doing good and all is well, but then on other days the pain is so deep and fresh it feels like it just happened. It does not come with a warning, so you could be in the most random places and the pain will come.
There is nothing like get over it. There is no getting over it. There is only coping with it. Levels of coping differ from person to person.
As much as you might have spent a lot of great time together, you will still wish you had never missed any calls, left any text messages unanswered, or skipped any moment to let them know how much they meant to you.
You will continually wish you had hugged them more, and showered them with all the love you have in the world, that there was no room left for anything else negative.
On some days you will struggle to remember the scent of them. You will get scared that the memory of this person who meant so much to you seems to be fading away, but on other days, it will seem like a whole movie is being played out in your head as memory after memory threatens to choke you.
Every little thing that once belonged them, becomes a sentimental piece you never want to lose or a piece that may become too over powering to have around you.
Death seems finite and cruel to the living. One day here, the next gone forever. If only eve had not eaten that fruit…but that’s a whole other story…
The dead on the other hand are at peace and this thought is what keeps me going.
