Finally, it's last year

It's January 1, 2018, and I can finally say it:

My mother died last year.

Last year puts it a little more in the background.  Maybe it takes some of the pain away.

I have been dealing with what I call "the weird phase of grief".  It's the phase where I'm having to tell myself, "my mother died" because I'm afraid that if I don't stop telling myself that, I'll forget that she's dead.

I've been told that I'll cry when I'm ready.  It could be that I may not have that "good cry" that I think I should have.  I actually "lost" my mother over a year before she died; when I could no longer have a coherent conversation with her.  So it could be that I've been doing my grieving for some time. 

I hate grief.  I hate the "missing" part of grief, the part where you miss the person's presence in your life.  I think that's the hardest part of dealing with loss.  You can mentally accept that the person's gone, then poof, something happens and you want to tell them about it . . . and you can't. 

I don't think I "feel" my mother's loss as much as my sister and my niece do.  It's different when you see someone decline day after day after day.  I didn't see that with my mother.  I just heard about her decline from my sister.  My sister and my niece saw her decline.  Especially my sister because she was the one who took her to the doctor's, took her out on errands, made sure that she was taken care of, made difficult decisions regarding her care. 

I'm the one who just heard about what was going on and tried to give my sister support, and I'm not sure how well I succeeded in that at times. 

This past year has not been an easy one for a lot of people.  It's been a year where we've seen division and anger, a year where the chasms dividing us as people seem just to get wider and deeper, and there are no bridge-builders to be found.  It's been a difficult year for me in some respects with loss and other circumstances.  I don't like where we're headed as a country, and I don't like feeling as if I'm walking on eggshells around people when discussing certain subjects. 

And of course, losing Mom topped it all.

Maybe that's why I'm just glad to say that finally, it was last year. 

That phrase puts a hard year and a hard loss in the books and helps me look forward to what I hope will be better times and a better future.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.