The unexpected.

It is almost the full moon. The hospice lady told me that my mother might die on the full moon, that people usually do, and I believed it, but my mother, not usual, did not. On Friday morning, June 17th, my uncle, the third of three brothers, six years older than my mother, who loved her with a love often reserved for one's child (he did promise their mother, on her deathbed, that he would care for my mother, and he did, Uncle B, you did) kissed her head, and told her that he would see her later. I pulled him aside, and whispered, if he could, please tell her that it was okay if she did not see him later. He did, as he cried, and she didn't wait, but she would have, had he not asked, and he was brave for saying what he did not mean.

I cried on Saturday night, in a church, as I listened to my husband play. It was the first time, almost, that I had cried since her funeral. I always thought that when she died I would instantly get sick. Nothing that I thought would happen has happened. I am rigid, I wait, still. Turns out, almost a month is not enough.

And if you wonder if you ought to, if it is right, say something. The bereaved (provenance: bereafian "to deprive of, take away, seize, rob") are more frightened than you. There is fear in mourning, there is anxiety. Moments when you forget that you are a mourner, are terrible for the remembering. If I could wear it on my sleeve that I am different, no longer the same, I would. Part of me lies with her. It is all I care about, my mother, and it is all I want to talk about. I want to tell you about her, and I will.