My mom called me the night that she died.
She left me a voicemail and said she was looking forward to seeing me, and asked what time would I be over?
When I checked it from a coffee shop that night, I rolled my eyes: why did she think I was coming over?
I’d seen her the night before, and she must have read my text (from the day before) and assumed it meant I was coming over again.
It annoyed me that because SHE got her wires crossed, I was now forced to feel guilty for not showing up.
I didn’t call her back; I figured I’d just explain why she was mistaken soon and went back to my night with friends.
I’d never get the chance, of course—by the next morning she was gone, and my world fell off its axis.
In the days and weeks that followed I listened to her voicemail over and over again…for clues, connection, some sign that she might’ve known I wasn’t coming?
Had she gone to bed with her feelings hurt? Had she watched the clock until she fell asleep, wondering if I’d walk in the door any minute?
One night in the weeks prior she’d told me that she dreamed I was sitting at the corner of her bed while she slept.
“It was nice, like when you were younger,” she’d said with a smile, and I shrugged the comment off.
But after she died, I hoped, prayed, begged God to have given her the same dream that night – maybe if she’d dreamed that I was sitting at the corner of her bed again, she wouldn’t have felt as alone as she actually was.
***
My mom gave me a book called “Walter the Farting Dog” for Christmas in 2008.
I’ve always loved a good fart joke, and my mom knew that. She made sure I have enough mugs, t-shirts and towels with the word “poop” and “fart” on them for a whole classroom of ten-year-old boys.
I never actually read the book – I knew it was a gag gift and that she got a kick out of it, and of course I did too. We laughed (the way Jews who celebrate Christmas do) and I tucked the book away for the next decade.
Today I opened that book and read it to Tilly.
The story’s really sweet – don’t be fooled by the word fart being on each page.
Walter the Farting Dog is struggling with who he is, trying to be accepted, and ultimately just wants to be loved without having to change himself- or his farts.
That’s pretty much all of us, right?
We just want to love and be loved. Farts and all.
Today as I read this goofy book about a farting dog, I shared a moment between the three of us that I wouldn’t have seen coming six years ago.
My daughter, my dead mother, and me: we were all there.
Birth…death…life…farts.
This swirl of mish mashed circumstances that is human existence.
On this night six years ago I was huddled under a blanket in my mom’s backyard so that I didn’t have to see her body being wheeled down the driveway. My eyes were going to swell shut from tears shed over the next few days.
Six years ago, it was really dark.
Sometimes it still is.
But that’s the weird thing about grief – sometimes it’s profoundly painful, and sometimes it’s laughter. Sometimes I lament that my mom never got to meet my daughter; sometimes I know she is a part of every moment I share with her.
Grief is like life: unpredictable, weird, debilitating, breathtaking. It’s tears and laughter and gut wrenching and awe.
It’s a farting dog and a laughing baby and the tears that come through smiles.
Grief can be everything, if we let it.
“Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you'll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you'll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room.” (Cheryl Strayed)
xo,
Melissa
Thanks for being here.
ARE YOU ASKING THE QUESTIONS YOU’LL WISH YOU HAD?
We all contain multitudes, and I sure wish I’d thought to ask my mom more about hers while I still could. Consider writing down answers for your kids, asking questions of your family members, or sending one of the Questions You’ll Wish You Asked journals to a person you care about today. Don’t forget about the one designed for the longest and deepest relationship of your life: the one you have with yourself. Find them here.
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