Grief: 2 Years Without Mom
A few weeks before August 1, 2019, my mom was having what we used to call “an episode.” She was more depressed than usual, taking some time off of work here and there, and was telling us she felt like she was “sliding.” Together we checked in with her and called each other separately saying what we usually did: “She’ll make it through this like she usually does. It’ll be fine in a week or so.” But on August 1st, it was anything but fine. At the ages of 27 and 28 we identified our mom’s body at a crematorium, planned a funeral, cleaned out her entire apartment, worked with detectives and medical examiners about her sudden and unexpected death, and uncovered her secrets of addiction and financial debt that had weighed her down for years. After 12 weeks we found out what killed her: fentanyl in pills that were sold to her in the disguise of Percocet.
Our mom’s death was both traumatic and tragic for us. We both still suffer from PTSD symptoms and are in therapy working through everything that was involved in her death and our grieving. Today, it has been 2 years since she died, so here are our reflections on where we are with grieving our mom.
Taylor
The week before Mom died, I got a call from her coworkers that something wasn’t right, so I drove to Richmond, Virginia to check on her. She had overdosed, but I didn’t know it at the time. She said she had an upset stomach so she took Imodium and must have taken it on an empty stomach. I stayed the night to spend time with her and make sure she was okay. She scheduled a doctor’s appointment for a few days later. She was vague about how the doctor’s appointment went. She didn’t sound right on the phone after that. She always sounded drowsy and wasn’t making sense. Morgan and I made her promise to text us every hour or two to let us know she was okay. Her work had made her take time off to get herself better, and she was trying so hard to get back to work and get her sense of normalcy back.
A few days later, I realized 12 hours had gone by without any word from her, so I hopped in the car and drove to Richmond late that night. I had a strange feeling that maybe she had died, and I remember looking at my husband and saying, “I cannot lose 2 parents within months of each other. I can’t do this.” I prayed for God to be with me during this scary trip. I told myself she was sleeping, so my plan was to go to her apartment early in the morning to give her some tough love and force her to go get checked in for a psych evaluation at a local hospital. After no answer on her phone and knocking on her apartment door for 10 minutes, I called the police. I stood in her apartment kitchen while I heard police officers yelling her name, looking for a pulse, learning seconds later that she was dead. I was in shock.
The first week of her death was a whirlwind. We had to fit so much into one week and spent so much time obsessing over her secret life that we spent the week in shock. A lot of the week was a blur. The months that followed brought tons of tears. I spent most nights crying while I rocked my beautiful 6 month old daughter, grieving the grandma she would never know. I started having trouble sleeping, being woken up by nightmares about my mom and having flashbacks to the morning when I found out she was dead in the next room. I would literally have to tell myself she was dead when I woke up every morning, almost like I couldn’t convince myself she was gone. Now I’m two years away from her death, and I still have nightmares and flashbacks. The day before Mother’s Day and last week I had panic attacks. It felt like the world was crashing in on me. I couldn’t breathe thinking about having another Mother’s Day without my mom. I had no reason to be panicky this past week, but that’s trauma for you. My body knows when August 1st is approaching. I spent the afternoons panicky and laying in my bed unable to move while my husband took over kid duty.
Most of the time, I look back on the past two years and think I’ve healed so much. And I have. I have done multiple grief courses/support groups, I go to therapy, I take “me” time, I read my Bible, I exercise, I reach out to people if I need them. I don’t cry every day or even every week. But then I smell a shirt or quilt of hers and I lose the ability to function for an evening. I look at my daughters, and I get angry because my mom is missing a time in her life where she would have thrived: as a grandma. She was beyond obsessed with my oldest daughter. It’s a love I will always grieve for my daughters. I hear a song, and tears immediately fill my eyes as I sing along. I still text Morgan almost weekly and say, “I can’t believe this happened to us. I can’t believe mom is gone.” I’m continually reminding myself that she’s not here anymore.
Grieving a death that has trauma and tragedy surrounding it is a daily struggle. The overwhelming burden has lessened over time, but it surfaces at the most unexpected times. Even as I write this post I am ready to lay down and just sleep. My mom should be here. She died from something that was treatable. It’s not fair. It doesn’t make sense. But I remind myself that she is with Jesus. She isn’t in pain anymore. He has wiped away all of her tears. And His plans are better than mine.
I miss you and love you always, Momma.
Morgan
The other day, Taylor texted me and said, “How will this ever not be the worst thing ever?”
I wonder that all the time. And the unfortunate answer is that I think it always will be the worst thing ever. Mom’s death was this surreal dream that I’m sometimes still convinced I’ll wake up from.
Mom lived in an apartment, so we had to clean out her apartment within 30 days or continue paying rent. Because Taylor and I both lived out of town, we cleaned out her apartment in the three days after she died. I would not recommend this to anyone. By day two, I was literally lying on the floor of the apartment crying. I could not make one more decision about what to keep or what to get rid of or what to give away. The entire process is unclear to me, as is most of the next six months. I didn’t realize that I was in a complete brain fog until I started to come out of it after the start of 2020. (Only to be hit by a global pandemic, but that’s a whole different blog post).
The woman at the funeral home recommended we not see Mom’s body before she was cremated. Taylor and I mulled this decision over and ultimately decided to view the body. Like Taylor, I have nightmares about Mom all the time. In them, she is always still alive. If I hadn’t seen her body, I don’t know that I would ever come around to acceptance that she is gone. It’s an unfortunate anchor in my sea of grief.
There’s something distinct in grieving a death that is traumatic. For months, every memory of my mom was tinted with the ugly darkness of addiction. I had trouble remembering anything good about her. Two years later, that darkness is still there, but it’s more like a translucent film that I can peel back. I don’t think that the stain of addiction will ever fully be removed from how I remember her, because unfortunately, it became part of who she was. But in her death, I have so much empathy and grace for her.
Leading up to this day, I’ve had multiple migraines and extreme fatigue, but I haven’t had a huge breakdown. With grief, the grieving process can create anxiety in its own right. When will it hit? How bad will it be? It’s kind of crazy how the lack of feeling anxious can make me feel anxious. I wonder if the lack of breakdown means I’m healing and moving on. But I know that’s not really true. Expressing emotion isn’t a sign of weakness or lack of healing. And the lack of it isn’t a sign of anything either. We react how we react when we react. Two years later, I’m still learning that this is true.