From the moment I was born, I had an audience; an adoring fan club who wanted the world for me and was prepared to sacrifice much to help me get it. That doesn’t mean life was perfect and nor was she, but it did mean that I started out with an irreplaceable advantage : unconditional love.
Through life’s trials (and there have been many) she was my best friend, my mentor, my partner in crime, my mirror and my lighthouse. She was a powerhouse of fight in my corner when I needed it and the most delightful and happiest of company under blue skies.
I miss her; understatement personified.
The road of grief can never be predicted and I’ve come to realize that it doesn’t have a destination. Once loss happens the grief travels with us and never leaves. Some days, it is damp and cold beneath our feet and on others, it is a gentle companion watching the breeze catch the leaves.
Lately, I have wondered who I am without my Mother.
Who am I without the expectations she had of me?… whether it be something she expected that I would do, a direction she expected me to take or an emotion she knew I would feel. Do I go the way I always would have gone, or does that change now that I don’t have the audience of parental ‘knowing’? Are there ways of my being that shift? Are there traditions, behaviors or directions that I held just for her? And, if so, what happens to them now? Do I discover one direction was indeed all my own or do I realize it had something to do with what she wanted for me or what I wanted for her?
Grief asks me these questions. What irony that I wish Mom was here to help me reply.
Gail Bartlett-Harris Registered Counsellor 