I lost my Mom on Tuesday night.

What can I write after a sentence like that?

I’m nearly 40. My mom was 82, my dad is 78. Over the last few years, I’ve been preparing myself to lose my parents. I didn’t know who would go first and at their advanced ages, either scenario would have its challenges.

I’m a writer. But I haven’t written anything about this until now. Fragments of words and sentences pass through my brain; they want to be written but I haven’t had a moment to myself. That’s the thing about death: it’s so…practical. 6,000 things need to be done before the funeral. I’m keeping a close eye on my Dad who is rushing around frantically so that he can’t remember that his friend of 48 years is gone. It’s not even that I have to be strong—that’s a phrase heard often around death. Be strong. I can’t help but be strong. It’s my nature. I grieve in private, on my own time. In public, I’m the one directing: “Dad, do you want some tea?” “Dad, we need to call this person.” “Dad, let’s send out the obituary to everyone.” (Even as I write this, he walks in and out, in and out, holding a mug of tea.) I’m trying to walk a sensitive line with my one brother’s grief and his usual chaotic whirlwind. I’m trying not to snap at my other brother’s constant directives.

When a parent goes, it’s like this anchor that’s been in place is suddenly unmoored. It doesn’t matter whether you’re close to them or not – it’s as if the pier that you’ve stood on, launched off from and returned to for so many years has finally dropped into the sea. And all the people who I’ve been trying to keep off my island are splashing around, desperate to find that pier. Family dynamics change in an instant. The power shifts to the children, who are not necessarily ready or willing to take it.

In my own family, it’s suddenly become very male. It’s weird. I’m surrounded by my Dad, 2 brothers and 2 nephews. We’re clueless as to where Mom kept things—containers, shampoo, blankets. For the first time in 40 years, the toilet seat was kept up, thanks to my 22 y/o nephew. My dad only knows how to “nuke” oatmeal and make shredded wheat. My brother said to me, “There’s some wash to be done,” and I replied, “You know where the washer is.”

We’re all struggling. It’s not just helpless males once the matriarch is gone. We’re all stressed and anxious, trying to keep it together for my Dad. We’re adjusting to being in a mutual space for more than a day. Where I’m sleeping doesn’t even have a door, just a blanket over the doorframe. (And if you know me, you know I crave privacy.) The phone rings constantly. I’m up at 8. I take out my earplugs and immediately step into the flow of the day. What keeps me relatively sane are daily walks to the local Wawa for a thermos of coffee. I pass old bus stops, the trashed out strip of woods, the 70s housing that makes me wince. I see my oldest friend from childhood and am constantly amazed to see 3 kids when I step into her house. I focus on birds and the giant full moon rising over the strip malls. I have dreams where Robin Penn Wright asks me out for coffee. I remember that I will soon be in my beloved Vermont, back to a certain rhythm that I sorely miss.

I left Vermont under the shadow of death. I return within its full reality. I’ve often thought during this period about the shaman’s death (and will be writing more fully once I have time). I had this idea that it was within a framework of sweatlodges, apprenticeships and vision quests. There’s no need for any of it.
Life gives plenty of opportunities to die and be reborn. Bat gave me a clue back in October as to what was ahead—but even with the intuitive clues, the vast spectrum of the unknown guarantees time in a turbulent ocean.

More about Mom when I get a chance to breathe…