I don’t want this new world, yet it seems to want me

I submitted this piece to the SBS Emerging Writers’ competition in September. This year’s theme was ‘Between two worlds’. Entries were to be at least 1,000 words (so this is a bit longer than some of my other pieces), and take the form of a non-fiction memoir. Winners have already been contacted, so I am now free to share this with you, my readers.

I chose to write in-depth about the experience of my mum’s passing. Writing this piece has contributed significantly to my healing process, so it’s quite raw. I have moved on from the darkest thoughts I’ve expressed here.

If pain is growth, then I should have grown two feet in the last year.

My world as I knew it changed forever on 17 June 2020, the day my mum died.

Mum had late-stage cancer, so we knew her time was coming. But I had a feeling she was going to leave us that particular day… and I was right. But I still wasn’t prepared. Not in the slightest.

At first when she left us, I was numb — that carried me through helping to organise mum’s funeral, write her eulogy, decide who could attend in person so we could keep numbers under 50 in a COVID world, sort through her belongings…

Then came a big bang of emotion that just kept exploding. I just wanted the world to stop spinning so I could get off.

I settled in on my new planet unwillingly, longing to just fade away, but I knew I couldn’t — at least not physically. I did in other ways: I didn’t really want to speak to anyone, and still don’t. I’ve avoided family, friends, and colleagues. I’ve hidden deep in my own world, not particularly interested in re-joining you all. It’s as if I’m in a COVID quarantine of my own making.

I was lucky enough to have had a great relationship with my mum, especially in the years leading up to her death. We were closer than ever; you could say we were best friends.

Mum was one of the funniest people I know. She was quick-witted and quick to laugh. She was a friend to all and judged none. She came up with affectionate nicknames for friends, family, and her colleagues without even asking, but we all loved her for it.
She loved donkeys. Her favourite foods were hamburgers, cheese, and meat. She loved her coffee.

She was an artistic, elegant lady — I can’t draw to save my life, and I don’t have half the style she did. I did inherit her sense of humour, though. I still feel a pang when other people acknowledge it or ask where it comes from.

Those kinds of reminders of her are everywhere; sometimes I find that painful, and sometimes comforting.

In my heart of hearts, I know she’s with me, even as I write this, yet my world feels lonely, and will never be the same as it was.

Part of me died with mum and will never return. I don’t say that to be morbid or dramatic — it’s simply fact. That’s been the hardest part: living in a new world that doesn’t have her in it, living as a different person without a mum. She’d be sad to hear that. The irony is mum felt the exact same way about her own dad, whom she missed every day until she died, over a decade after his passing.

I miss mum so much it feels hard to move forward. I feel stuck now between what I wish life was and what it is. Sometimes I want no part in accepting any of this and I want her back. Yes, that is oh so selfish, but I don’t want her in some other world: I want to flash back to a time before mum was ever sick, or forward to when I feel normal again.

What’s next for me then? When will I be able to move again? To breathe? To feel like each day is more than just putting one foot in front of the other? Each time I feel I may be moving on, another wave of grief comes, as if from nowhere, pulling me back.

News of other people passing — whether they are close loved ones or strangers — affects me more deeply now. It rips open a wound that had just started to heal over.

Sometimes I feel I’m alone in all this; logically I know I’m not. My own family are all going through it too. There must be thousands of people out there who feel the loss of their loved one every day, and of the future they won’t share with them. Yet none of us feel it in the same way.

I weep for the things my mum and I don’t share now. How I miss those little and big things! Her smile.
Her laugh.
Being able to call and tell her about my day.
Going to get our nails done together.
Having her greet me at the door when I go to visit.
Getting a hug goodbye when I leave.
Calling her to tell her I got home safely.
Going shopping with her.
Having her tell me how proud she is of me.
Telling each other our silly jokes.
Getting texts, emojis, and photos from her.

I’ve moved into a new home and instead of having her visit, I have her photo in a frame.

I weep for the things she won’t be around for…things that haven’t even happened yet.

Finding my soul mate and not having them meet her.

Marrying them and mum not being there.

Things I don’t even know about.

Write about heartbreak, you said? — Well, this is mine. These are my two worlds: the world I knew before my mum passed away, and the world I know now, so profoundly changed. A seismic shift — in my heart, my psyche, my emotions, my mental health, and my life priorities. Family, relationships, goals, and what I do with the time I have left … all of that matters more to me now than anything. Everything else — like work — is small stuff. Well, it pays my bills, but that’s all.

I’m forcing myself to work, buy the groceries, do everyday things. But how tempting it is just to let complete numbness in! It’s waiting in the shadows. I feel it, yet at the same time I’m fighting it off — I want to feel everything, not nothing. That matters to me. If I push it all down, where does it go? When will it resurface? I know I have to pass through the fire, not walk around it. I guess some of my priorities aren’t so pleasant. I’d really prefer for the pain to stop. I know it will ease with time. How I wish that time were now.