The Loss of my Mother

I've had yet to share my poetry (of any type) on my blog, but I decided that it was time. I shared this particular piece back in April on the 3 year anniversary of my Mom's death. It was only fitting to do so. 

My Mom fought cancer for nearly a decade and kicked ass doing so, but fighting meant chemo and radiation. If you know anything about cancer treatment then you know that it's extremely detrimental to the body, more specifically the immune system. 

She was a hard headed, self-proclaimed "bitch", who loved her family with everything she had and tried to give her children the world...even if it meant she went without. She was the backbone of our family and it fell apart when she died.

She was my best-friend and the person I called several times a day to get advice about motherhood, vent to when I felt like nobody else would understand, and cry to when my heart was broken. When my first marriage was ending, my mother told me that I had too big of a heart to give up on love. She assured me that love would come around when I least expected it. 

When Sean came into my life she knew before I told her that I had fallen for him. She knew that the love I felt for him was rare and she warned me not to let him fall in love with me. She was afraid that I wasn't ready...but love had happened and she knew it. 

He was the first guy that I have ever seen her accept 100% as good enough to be my husband. She adored him and when I last saw her she told me to "Thank Sean for me..for loving you...I know I can go home without worrying about you being taken care of. Never let him go and when marriage gets hard fight like hell to hold onto it." 

My Mom may have not been my mother by blood but she was my grandmother by blood. If you've read my previous blogs, then you know I've mentioned that I was adopted by my grandparents. I have only recently started working on a relationship with my biological mother and I couldn't be more thankful. If my Mom wouldn't have taught me forgiveness and understanding..then I am not sure I would have ever been ready to take this step with my biological mother. 

I am grateful now to say I have two moms. If I count the other women in my life such as my ex-step mother, Robyn or my mother-in-law, Barb then I can honestly say I have more moms than most. None of them are alike, none of them can replace the mother that I lost when Dixie left this world, but they all hold a very dear place in my heart and I love them tremendously.

In the last three years I have slowly accepted that my Mom is no longer here but I have plenty of moments where I feel her presence..and her absence. Every time I hear You Are My Sunshine I am reduced to tears. As I sit here writing I have that song playing in the background and I am looking at my computer screen through a veil of tears. That was our song...I have only recently stopped picking up the phone to call her.

I think what inspired this blog the most was when I was unpacking a box last night. It was items that I had given my Mom when she was in the hospital. My aunt Roxie had been sure that those items made it back to me. One item in particular nearly broke my heart when I held it. It's a large purple butterfly that you can hang on the wall. My parents have always called me butterfly because my Daddy gave me that nickname when I was three years old. 

Anyway, I was living in Florida when my Mom was sick and had traveled back home to Kentucky to see her...to..say goodbye. I felt awful the day before I had to leave because I knew that I would most likely never see her alive again. I went to the gift shop and bought that purple butterfly and put it in her room. I told her that even if I wasn't physically there I was always with her and that butterfly was to remind her of that. 

When I held that butterfly last night, I cried for a few minutes and it felt I was mourning her death all over again. I have a few other pieces that were sent to her funeral specifically for me. Two beautiful white angels that I hold dear because of my best friends who sent them. That box was hard for me to go through last night but it was a little bit easier than when I packed it up a month ago. 

It left me feeling raw with emotion and today I decided to get up and write...I have to write to get it out because I've found that writing is the only way I allow myself to truly deal with her death. This brings me to the poem...

The back story on this poem is that I wrote it for a creative writing course in college. I have had a very difficult time dealing with my Mom's death and more often than not I tend to downplay my emotions until they fester inside and I, more or less, explode into a blubbering mess of tears. 

We were asked to write a poem in a specific format and I chose to write an elegy. My mood that day was bitter to the point that I could nearly taste it rising like bile in the back of my throat. The only way to deal with that bitterness was to expel it from myself in the form of writing.

Here's the poem: (Disclaimer-This is my work and I don't mind it being quoted but please do not do so without my permission.) 

   

The End (Elegy)
                                     
Heads were bowed in contemplative unison as we awaited for the formalities to end.
Staggered breathing could be heard if one paid attention,
But most were lost within their own reflections of their last moments with her. 

Moments that would be forever encapsulated in our hearts, as we held steadfast to the hope that she would some how awaken; a ridiculous notion for the dead cannot be shaken.
The spirit that had tethered her to this world had long abandoned the fragile shell that we now gazed upon.
One by one, we began to say our final good bye, though mere words seemed to desensitize everything we felt in those life-altering seconds.
A hushed whisper rumbled through our ears as we made our approach to the cold, metallic tomb in which she lay.
Mouth drawn in a tight line and hands clasped stiffly across her torso, the image was imposed upon us as it etched itself into our memories.
We tried to catalog it with the other undesirables that could not be unseen; but it was at the forefront of our sorrow.
In the air hung a smell that only funeral flowers could generate. The scent burned our throats and had the ability to conjure up painful images of those who we wished only to commemorate.
A sickeningly, sweet fragrance laced with heartache and regret, thick enough that it could drowned anyone who allowed it.
Acidic tears stung our cheeks and our knees began to buckle beneath the weight of the sorrow. We supported one another in this  moment because we felt camaraderie in our pain.
Clinging to the cold edge of the box in which she lay, we whispered words of comfort and regret that fell on deaf ears to our dismay.
As morning shifted to afternoon, we walked across soft, moist earth to her final resting place.
The minutes ticked by at a quickened pace, that blurred past as the midday sun cast dark shadows over every mourners’ face.
A prayer was spoken in a voice twisted by despair, but that pivotal moment did not fully register until the creaking of the ropes resounded around us. Slowly she sank into the cold ground, forever hidden from our sights except for when we allowed our hearts to reminisce. © 2014 Kimberly Kasper