Still Raining

It's still raining and I'm good with that. Truthfully, the grey skies and dank dampness rather fit my somber mood this week. My Mom will be gone three years tomorrow and despite what they say, it really doesn't get any easier. What I can say is that it is different.

As I drove along the lakefront yesterday, I was fixated on the waves that weren't just rolling in as they usually do, but breaking shore dangerously. The typhoon that assaulted Japan is now stilled over the midwest. The wave, it struck me, is really the perfect symbol for my grief. As defined, a wave is a disturbance that travels through space and time accompanied by the transfer of energy. My sorrow is always present even if under the surface, building momentum, ebbing and flowing until it crests again. The sadness I feel from my loss shrinks and swells, but it never seizes. It's true that after three years, I experience fewer tsunamis. There are more ripples than rogue whitecaps day to day, but even slight undulations disrupt, disturb and cause erosion over time. Treading in still water is still tough and tiring.

I have come to accept that the end of September...this week...will always be a time when my grief surges. With two milestones: her last birthday and her heaven day, exactly seven days apart it is near impossible to come up for air. Somehow knowing this and accepting it doesn't leave me any better prepared to weather it.