I hate February. The memories of the last couple of weeks of my Mom's life flood in...I wish it were just good memories, but it's mostly horror. I cannot believe it has been nearly seven years. It is like yesterday. The same sickening feelings hit me every year, right after my birthday. I hate it. Of course, I remember the good times and the fact that my mother loved me very much. It's just that my body- brain memory automatically kicks into processing mode...Unconscious feelings that I buried at the time out of coping necessity, come rolling over me like huge ocean waves, that swirl over me, get caught in little inlets and swirl around for awhile before they go back out to sea. Then the next wave hits...on and on...every year there are new memories to process.
I worked in Crisis ( DV, Child Protection, Hospice) work for so long, that being able to turn off my emotions in times of urgency was an emotional tool. I am the Queen Mistress of Detachment. I am glad I had that tool at the time. It allowed me to cope with the issues at hand, automatically. I was in auto pilot. I pay the price for that auto pilot mode every Feb. with a severe bout of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.
I was the strong one in the family. I was the counselor. I knew about the importance of the family processing feelings. I knew the death process. I knew what happened both physically, spiritually and emotionally to the patient and the families.
I was working as a Hospice Counselor at the time that my Mom was diagnosed with brain cancer ( Dec. 23,1998). I went on leave when she was diagnosed, because I knew it wouldn't be healthy for me, dealing with death every day. I needed to be there for my Mom and my family. I knew what brain cancer brings. I had seen it many times. We were determined as a family that my mother would not go to a nursing home to die. She didn't. She died at home on Feb.17, 1999.
I am writing a lot in my "secret journal" at Oprah.com right now. I can process and whine and cry and go into the horror in detail there if I need. I can scream and holler and write letters of anger to God/Goddess/All there is there with out feeling like I am pushing my stuff on anyone else. I also blab and on,in run on sentences. Jump from ship to ship. I'll spare everyone else that.
It gets a little better every year, as far as the day to day dealing with the loss and my grieving. I had five deaths in my immediate family in a 2 year period. In Oct.2000, when the last death, the death of my Dad (he was my step dad but my DAD) happened, there was a part of me that went away and never came back. Like standing in front of a big thick picture window and shattering it with a sledge hammer. That is how I felt and feel a lot still... The window can't be fixed. It can be replaced with a new piece of glass and a different view, but never fixed. I still find shards and slivers of glass sometimes...always lots of pieces in February.
Death sucks...grieving sucks...moving on sucks because you can't move on without processing the past. The whole thing SUCKS.
Bear with my posts if they get a little icky and I don't spell check or I disappear for a day or two, in the next few weeks. I am working on my own own stuff and dive into my hermit crab shell to do it. It's an Aquarian thing...I am ok, I will always be ok.
I am a tough little cookie...
The only good thing I ever look forward to in February, is NASCAR starts again. Thank Goodness for NASCAR. **LOL**
