Mixed Feelings ...

I had forgotten to mention something that happened last night. I was taking the dog for a walk down at the cemetery. We visited Mom's grave, and then strolled down along a stream full of ducks and geese and even a few swans. The weather was wonderful, the sun was shining, the air was filled with the sounds of quacking and wings and splashing; the dog was delighted barking. Mom would have loved the scene.

And then the thought came to me: "Why should your heart not dance?" And I smiled. A big smile. Inside I felt this horrible emptiness still, but also felt in the midst a joy I haven't felt for some time.

"Why should your heart not dance?" is a line from CS Lewis's Till We Have Faces. Lewis's A Grief Observed is such a wonderful record of his own experience with bereavement; I had forgotten that Till We Have Faces has a wonderful sub-story of bereavement as well. I need to look up that book and read it again.

Now though I'm remembering that ... and also feeling this horrible, horrible sense of emptiness, hopelessness, purposelessness ... and of wrongness, that the universe is wrong, wrong, wrong. I've just started going through some of Mom's mail again ... I've been putting it off ... but now just really have to: I'm supposed to file her income taxes tomorrow. Back on April 15 I had filed extensions for both her and me ... something I've never done in my life but things were crazy at the time. And now both her and my 6-month extensions are set to expire. And I'm told there are no more extensions. And I'm to go ahead and prepare her return even though I'm no longer DPOA since her decease. I'm following advice in all this and am sure this is the thing to do. But oh ... I'll admit ... I've been putting this off and putting this off ... and now looking at her mail, with her name on it ... looking at her financial this and that ... it seems so horribly horribly Wrong of the Universe. She's supposed to be here doing this. Not me.

But of course it is me. It's my duty to my Mom. I agreed to do all these kinds of things. No one made me agree to do this. I wanted to: I wanted to do whatever I could, anything I could, for Mom. And so it's this. I agreed to do it, for her, so by God Himself, and by His Grace, I'll do it.

But oh God oh God oh God ... how it hurts and hurts and hurts. I just want to run away. That old thought of running whenever something comes up that I deeply deeply don't want to deal with. Nothing new there. I tend to think of running to Alaska, or Florida, or Anywhere Else.

Can't run away though. Promised. Promised Mom. Promised God.

OK. Here goes. I'll do it. Damn. I'll do it. Damnit.