you see, my mom died three years ago today. and here i am writing a blog post on a grief book. i'd like to think reading mom w/cancer books will be a phase for me but it's unlikely. losing your mom is not a phase you grow through. it sticks.
this book is reminiscent of Joan Didion's "the year of magical thinking" and Romm's "the mercy papers". If these books irritate you, then don't plan to lose someone you love. They are raw. So is the experience.the long goodbye is less about the dying, more about the grief. The notion that: "I am becoming someone whose mother is dead." O'Rourke explains that you don't just mourn the dead person, you mourn the person you got to be when the lost one was alive. a daughter knows what it is like to be "unmothered."
i've made huge steps forward in my grieving. but have yet to go through all the plates and the scarves and the teaching memorabilia that i just can't bear to part with. and i still believe that my mom is alive in butterflies and fireflies. the magic of this, the comfort . . . is slowing wearing away.
o'rourke is a poet and "the long goodbye" a poem. maybe i have a poem to write too.
I cried when I read this post. Your words seemed to make me better understand your grief and what it must be like to walk in your shoes. I take too much for granted. Sending you loving hugs.
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