A Year of Firsts
One of my favorite memories of my mother is from our drive from Ohio to visit my grandparents in Western Pennsylvania one Thanksgiving in the early 2000s. It was a cold, dark, and windy day and we were amid the never-ending construction on I-70 when the heavens opened and buckets of rain were hammering down on our car.
Struggling to see the cars ahead and the orange construction barrels along the side of the narrow road, my mom switched the windshield wipers to their highest setting. After giving a few swift sweeps of the windshield, one of the clips from the passenger-side wiper came unclipped and was flopping helplessly across the windshield. Determined not to lose the wiper, my mother rolled my window all the way down and instructed me to catch it when it came to my side.
This was a bad plan from the start, but I gave it a try. After several minutes I rolled my window up, defeated. My hair, shirt, pants, and even my seat were soaked and my freezing fingers were sore and numb. My mom, still panicked but dry, pulled off at a rest stop to reattach the wiper. We sat in the car and laughed and laughed before returning to the road.
This year has been an awful “Year of Firsts” for our family as we adjust to our new world since her passing last summer. We’ve made it through our birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and other special events during the year with her looming absence and have each come up with our own new distractions to combat the emptiness and grief we still battle daily.
But in her typical way, during this horribly long “Year of Firsts,” my mother has put herself last. Next week we will celebrate her birthday and the following week we will celebrate Mother’s Day, both without our mother. Finally, in only a couple of short months, we will hit the hardest day in this horrible year: the anniversary of her death. I imagine myself breathing a sigh of relief and telling myself, “We did it. All of the firsts.” But, deep down, I know the second year will be no easier.
The thing no one tells you about grief is, it doesn’t go away. It becomes this unwanted part of you — a parasite tainting your happy memories with sadness. It watches as you have a good day and whispers in your ear, “Your mom would have loved to see this” and cackles as your heart becomes heavy and tears sting your eyes. Like a jack-in-the-box, you never know when it will pop up. You go about your week slowly winding the crank as you do things until it ultimately pops up at the wrong moment.
Over the past few months, I’ve realized grief is not a painful inconvenience. Grief is not a sore tooth that needs to be extracted, and once it’s done, it’s over. Rather, grief is a chronic illness that will give you good days, some not-so-good days, and some downright painful “flare-ups” that will bring you to tears, and all you can do is find ways to make yourself feel not as bad until it passes. I tell my daughter about her Nana during these times. I talk to my dog about her. I write. I try to find a way to be motivated and encouraged by grief. And I’m going to be honest: It is hard.
Much like that rainy car ride with my mother that Thanksgiving holiday, I have felt the barrage of water pounding down on me this year in the form of grief. I have desperately reached for things to help steady me and clear my sight, but like the fruitless effort of trying to grab the windshield wiper, I have often found myself cold, wet, and miserable. But also like that day, when I allow myself time to pull into a rest area, I am able to let that “flare-up” of grief run its course and laugh at the memories.
