Tomorrow marks the 3rd year since you took the plunge into the great unknown of what happens after this. Its terrifying for me because in one way it feels like this is how life has always been, and on the other hand, my head is full of this multitude of memories involving you and things you have done, and what your voice sounded like, and how you always made me feel...though some of those memories have begun to fade. Even though my memory makes me question and wonder about the realities I may or may not have recorded correctly in among the synapses and neural connections sparking around in my head, I know that you existed because I exist. That's the most basic proof. The truth right down to the root of it. I'm here because you were here once.
Even that is sometimes not enough to make me fully recall that you used to walk and talk and breathe and cry and laugh and cook and yell and sing and dance. Sometimes its just not enough. I guess I have come to realize how incredibly and stubbornly physical we as human are. We need to make things tangible in order to code them as real or not. What about God or Santa or Heaven or Aliens or Ghosts or Angels or Leprechauns? We are constantly striving to make the intangible, tangible. We make houses for Gods, light candles for Angels, leave stockings for Santa, try to capture Ghosts on film. We cant accept that things can exist purely as an idea, a concept, a thought, a memory. Its too difficult for us to master, we need something more.
And so in my own way, in my own search for meaning, for proof, I turn to the physical evidence; pictures of you, notes or cards or books with your handwriting in them, your jewelry box--your watches still smell like your perfume--gifts you have given me, your Christmas dishes, a shirt you used to wear, your sheets, gifts I gave you for holidays that have now come back to rest in silent spaces in my own home. Here is the proof. Its all here. And its still not enough.
And I'm coming to accept that it never will be enough. Because in my staid mammalian brain, I haven't reached that level of enlightenment, the moment of Zen, the highest reaches of consciousness that would allow me to accept that you are really still out there, even if I don't have the capacity to fully sense your new form. People tell me that you will always be with me. You are always part of me, and in a sense that's true, since I literally came from you, you helped create me. But I'm also told that your presence is around me, and always will be. That you can sense me and that you know whats going on in the world of the living, that you may still even have a vested interest in the mostly mundane, and sometimes wonderful things that go on around here. That is the part that I don't agree with. I think its just something people say for various reasons.
I don't know where you are now. I don't know if you are actually around me, when I feel you sometimes, or if its just my memory of you that for whatever reason sometimes takes a trip outside of my brain and goes wandering around this physical plane, and that memory of you is what I sense. What is a memory anyway? Why does my recollection of you have to be any less real than how you were when you were here? It all comes back to the physical again. You cant hug a memory. A memory wont cook for you when you stop by out of the blue, hungry and happy to be home. A memory wont answer the phone when you just need to talk. A memory cant give advice. Metaphorically, sure. Memories help us learn from the past, but when all you want is to hear that person's voice, a memory falls short. Its like an echo from across a great divide. You know it came from somewhere, you know something made it, but you cant find the source.
Mom, I think of you every day. Even if I'm not consciously aware of it.. I see you in everything, notice things you would have liked or made fun of or been angered by. And the older I get, the more I am able to recognize the parts of me that clearly came from you. And the older I get, the more clarity I receive on why you taught me the things you did, why I was raised the way I was. I am exceptionally lucky. I got to say thank you before you left. Almost no one gets that chance.
We hear a thousand times a thousand repetitions of the phrase Life is Short. It starts to lose its meaning. It becomes just another thing to say. We are easily distracted by the things that we have assigned meaning to, that mean absolutely nothing. Its hard to be fully present 100% of the time. I would say its almost impossible. But the anniversary of my mother's death is a yearly reminder for me to cut the shit out, and focus on what I think it means to really live. From death, springs an eternal reminder of life. Another reason to say thanks. Thanks mom.
Love you, Miss you always.
~Holly Marie Stadnik~ June 12th 1957--October 22nd 2008
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