Status adjustment
When I received the phone call this morning it was expected my mother who has been ill is now gone. My siblings and I are now orphans in the technical sense I know that’s not how it really works but I have no other experience to go by I do not know what happens next. I’m almost too old to start learning new things. Anyhow I guess tomorrow will be a new day and I will still get up and do the same things I do every day but there will be one piece missing. This was and is my mother and she knew me longer than anyone else on earth I hope that I brought her no shame. I hope I brought her comfort from time to time. She did for me. Trying to judge the quality of a parent is difficult because we all have our own set of experiences. In my case she was always there even at a great distance. The phone number that I still carefully memorized will not serve me again. I will not be building a pile of old photographs, although I could. I have the memories and that’s what is really valuable. My children have been informed and they will have to set their own memory banks. I knew her better than them I can say in my most judgmental tone. The reality is that we live we love we die. My own time will be measured by others. I have been warned that grief is a process. A long one. And so now I must find my best jacket and get ready for the long cold winter.
