Mommy on my Mind

So it's October. And in nine days it will be the one year anniversary of my mother's death. I think that's why, clearly, I feel so emotional. My first night here in Atlanta, I was sleeping on Mortal Kombat's couch, and he was sleeping beside me on another couch. He told me the next morning that I was crying in my sleep and seemed to be very upset. I tried to play it off, but I knew what he was talking about. I was having some sort of nightmare. We'd fallen asleep watching some random movie streamed to his tv on his Netflix. I don't remember much, but I do remember this feeling of trying to connect with her. In my last grief counseling session last Wednesday, I told my counselor that the reason I feel so bothered when spiritual folk tell me that I carry her with me everywhere, and that she's all around me, is because I don't feel her. And that I haven't felt her presence ever. And she told me something very similar to what a friend told me. Basically that I may not be settled enough to receive her yet. That it may not be the right time. And what I thought about that was it wasn't the right time for her to go either. But that's selfish.

So with that fresh in my mind, I had this dream where it seemed like she was trying to reach out to me. I could almost see her in this dream state, and I could almost feel her. I just felt warm and I knew it was her. But before I could say anything to her or hear anything from her, the movie we were watching ripped me violently back to consciousness and she was gone. I tried to force myself back to sleep quickly and searched eagerly throughout the recesses of my mind for any trace of her. And that developed into another dream where I was in literal darkness, arms outstretched like a baby, grabbing hold of pieces of nothingness desperately trying to turn it into something. Trying to turn it into her. And every time I failed, I just cried out "No". And that's what he saw. He said it looked like I was struggling. I woke up with dry tear stains down my face, and at first I didn't know what was real and what was a dream. And I've been an emotional roller coaster since that day. Everything is much more heightened now as I approach the 15th. All this mess with the movers not bringing my stuff (which as I type this, I received a call from the driver saying he'll be there tomorrow Oct. 7th b/w 1-3pm...I'm not gonna hold my breath, but God willing it'll happen) is so much more than it would have been normally. And watching Mortal Kombat snuggle on his couch with a woman he claims isn't his girlfriend, but with behavior that to me and many other people seems to be clearly relationship stuff, it reminds me of the physical contact I've gone without for almost a year. I want a man to hold me while I sleep. Or hold me while I cry. To tell me that he knows it's not the same, but that he loves me and everything's gonna be ok.

This has been on my mind for the past several weeks...the past year. I had a miscarriage five years ago. Saying it out loud is still kinda unreal. I feel so removed from it at times, and then at others like now, it's more real than anything else in my life. Everyone around me is having babies--friends and family. And underneath my immense delight for their news is a weighted and incalculable grief. I want children but I have no husband. No boyfriend. And uncooperative hormone levels. Just as every woman wants her father to walk her down the aisle on her wedding day, she also wants her mother to help her pick out the gown, and hold her hand through all the days of her pregnancy. It's a symmetrical bond that is germaine only to women. How beautiful to look in your mother's eyes and know she's walked the same path you're walking right now. She knows what it's like to be in love with the life growing inside her and what that feels like and what it means, how the body changes. A friend of mine told me that when her son was born she didn't know she could love something so much, and she told her grandmother that. And her grandmother smiled at her and said, "That's how your mother feels about you", and she said she burst into tears. She said it blew her mind to know someone loved her that strongly and that it wasn't a feeling that was quantifiable. And that was mind blowing because now that she was a mother, she knew just how deeply she was loved by her own mother. And I remember being so touched when she shared that story with me, and I told Mommy and she looked at me and just said, "Of course".

As long as she was alive, my feelings of guilt about the miscarriage had taken their inevitable course, and hid themselves away deep in my subconscious. I know mentally that it wasn't my fault, but now that she's gone, I can't help but blame myself. She kept saying, even before she got sick, that she'd never be a grandmother. And sometimes she was joking cause my brother and I, both over thirty, weren't in serious relationships and neither of us seemed to be in a rush. But I'd always tell her she's being silly and that's not true. But she knew. And in the end she was right. She left this world without knowing the joy of seeing her children have life beyond their own. And she wanted to be a grandmother so much. She woulda been a great one. And it's a horrible feeling to know the one thing she wanted most, was the one thing I couldn't give her. And it wouldn't be so bad if either I never knew about the miscarriage, or if I'd never been pregnant. But knowing that there was life that began and then ended--knowing that the chance for her to get the thing she wanted was there is almost too much to find peace with.

I always thought she'd be there with me on that day. Even in my crazy fantasies when I was Mrs. Brad Pitt. I was thin, and beautiful, and rich, and successful with a good marriage and a baby on the way. Sometimes in the fantasy, I'd go into labor and I'd call Mommy from the car on the way to the hospital, and she'd hop the first flight outta Jersey to LA, even though she's afraid to fly, and I'd have a car waiting for her and it'd drive her straight to me. Other times, I'd call her a month before I was due and she'd spend all that time with me. Sometimes Brad was shooting on location and it'd just be me and Mommy in the hospital, and sometimes Brad would be home and drive all three of us to the hospital. As you can see, there were many permutations of this dream, but always the first face I wanted to see after my baby's was hers. And now, no matter what, that will never happen. And I hate thinking of my future now. Yes, there have been times in this past year where things have felt a little normal. But normal isn't normal. And I hate that.

Before I left Jersey, I went to the cemetery and stood over my mother's grave. They had just laid the headstone. It's a simple design, two hands praying, pink granite. It reads: Frances Louise Gonzalez Beloved Daughter and Mother December 8, 1947-October 15, 2009. It was the most powerful moment of my life. There I was staring down at the green grass as immaculate as someone's lawn, picturing her white and pink casket beneath my feet, holding her body forever. This vessel that brought forth my life in pain, this vessel that once wrapped its arms around me in comfort and love. This vessel that kissed me with its lips. This vessel that is now an empty shell, resting eternally beneath the dark earthen lawn of a picturesque cemetery. Mommy never felt comfortable going to the cemetery. Perhaps it's because there were so many people there that she knew--her brothers, her sister, grandparents, cousins, uncles, friends. So to leave her there is so painful. I feel like I failed her, and I know I did the best that I could, but that's never gonna feel like enough. She's my mother. And I want her back. It's that simple. And it's that complicated. And I know it can never be, but still, I just want her back.