{"id":1424,"date":"2013-02-08T07:03:39","date_gmt":"2013-02-08T12:03:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/?p=1424"},"modified":"2020-04-04T07:04:15","modified_gmt":"2020-04-04T11:04:15","slug":"five-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/2013\/02\/08\/five-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Years"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Five years ago this evening, my mother died unexpectedly. I got one of the phone calls that you never want to get, and joined what my sister now calls \u201cthe club that nobody wants to be in.\u201d At the time, I wrote a bunch of blog posts about it. That turns out to have been a good thing. Those memories aren\u2019t really available to me except by reference. I remember the images. I remember the flow of events, but those crisp recollections have faded. I\u2019ve told the stories enough times that those stories have become<\/strong> the memories. If, over time, I\u2019ve changed the stories, I suspect that I have also adjusted the memories to fit them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This sort of thing happens to me a lot. When I pay attention, I can see myself constructing and adjusting memories around photographs or stories that we share year over year. It\u2019s funny to feel my experience of reality deforming around my perceptions and expectations. It\u2019s not a deliberate thing. It\u2019s merely how the mind works. We create little trails through our consciousness. The trails where you run your mind most frequently are the ones where it\u2019s easiest to walk. It\u2019s a self reinforcing pattern. What we see when we look at the world, unless we are incredibly careful, is mostly what we expected to see. Without massive effort, you\u2019ll probably believe tomorrow what you happened to believe today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A subtle and similar thing has happened with memories of my mom. For the first few years there was a palpable and personal ache there. A feeling of her being a person, a person who was missing from every occasion. Like when a dinner date stands you up and you eat alone. Today, while I certainly wish that I could share this year\u2019s stories with her \u2013 bemoan Kid Rock and Eminem\u2019s fade into soft, fuzzy hipsterism \u2013 I feel like the \u201cperson\u201d space she occupied in my consciousness has been freed up. I\u2019m not lonely for her anymore, really. That makes me sad and happy at the same time. I have good memories, but it\u2019s like a story hasn\u2019t been told in too long, rather than an empty seat at the table. Like seeing weeds growing over one of my favorite walking trails, rather than missing the person with whom I used to walk them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I guess that means that the grieving has wrapped up. It also feels like she\u2019s really \u201cgone\u201d at some slightly deeper level than merely never getting to have a new conversation with her again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was talking with a friend this week whose mother will almost certainly die soon. By talking I mean that for once in my ever talkative existence I tried to shut up for a bit and listen to him. Something I learned five years ago is that merely being present is the best thing you can do for a friend experiencing that kind of loss. Simply showing up is everything. It\u2019s hard to see a friend who is going to hurt, in ways he doesn\u2019t yet understand, and to try to merely tell him that you know \u2013 without wasting his time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These feelings don\u2019t fit into words, per se. You can see that someone else has or has not experienced them \u2013 and with time you realize that\u2019s neither good nor bad. It\u2019s just dumb luck whether you\u2019re the live or the dead one. Whether you get to say goodbye over weeks and months or get the horrible phone call \u2013 it\u2019s just a roll of the dice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m glad that the last thing my mother and I talked about was how much we liked each other. Her death was a sudden and massive blow to my personality, one that changed me permanently. Most of my beliefs remained intact. Some shattered like so much sheet ice hitting a stone floor. I\u2019m glad that we hadn\u2019t ended on some stupid beef about something trivial. I\u2019m glad that I don\u2019t have to regret it when I think of the last time we talked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So on this, my personal little holiday: If you\u2019re reading these words \u2013 reach out to someone you love. Tell them you care. If you have a stupid spat going on? Cut the other person some slack. Walk away from that fight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the long term? If you\u2019re lucky enough to get to see five years from now? You\u2019ll thank yourself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Five years ago this evening, my mother died unexpectedly. I got one of the phone calls that you never want to get, and joined what my sister now calls \u201cthe club that nobody wants to be in.\u201d At the time, I wrote a bunch of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-real-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1424"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1425,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1424\/revisions\/1425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}