Teri Polo Instagram – Messing around with camera settings, exposures, etc. (@petehalvorsen would be proud…)
I think this pic appears as if I’m looking out a window, looking out towards the now, life now, the life to come…
“Grief comes in stages” that’s what they say, right? For me it’s been in spits and spurts, forwards, backwards…no rhyme, no reason.
I skipped anger…unfortunately I spent a great deal of my adulthood angry with my mom.
When she died, that anger died with her. Of course I have felt deep sorrow, guilt, relief, even joy.
But these emotions have come randomly, out of order, and out of the blue or because I am sitting here focusing on her death and I am taken aback by what emotion surprises me and takes over. I opened up my eyeglass case the other day, looking for my prescription glasses I couldn’t find, as per the usual, and there were her glasses…I was punched in the heart, I couldn’t breathe for a brief moment. I sat down on my bed and sobbed. The last time I saw those glasses, they were on her face. She was still alive when I last saw them on her face. How can they be here, without her? I found her socks that I gathered from her room at hospice after she died…and yes, I smelled them. They simply smelled like my ma. I didn’t cry. It made me happy. I took a deep breath and smiled because she was still here in the faint scent. How lucky I am!
I received the most extraordinary gift in my life, second only to giving birth to my children, when I was able to be literally holding my mother, her face over my left shoulder, as she expelled her last faint breath. I held her and kept repeating “I love you ma” so she was able to take that with her when she left for wherever she was going.
The very first emotion I felt as she left was joy! I wept and smiled and kept saying “I’m so happy for you ma!” There was no more pain, she was no longer imprisoned in a body that had failed her years ago, no more sadness and anger and fear, frustration, jealousy, need. I can absolutely with complete honesty say I felt her joyfully pull away and fill the room with abject exultation. Can there possibly be joy in death? #death #ma #reality #emotions #grief #love #daughter
cont’d in comments… | Posted on 09/Oct/2024 20:57:15
