My first Easter without my mother. I now mark each holiday by her absence. The first birthday, the first Christmas, the first New Year, and so on. A long line of firsts reminding me that we will never be together again. When I was a little girl, she and my dad hid plastic Easter eggs in the grass around our house. Even when I became an adult, she insisted on making me Easter baskets filled with little gifts and candies.
As painful as it is to be alone in my grief, I think it's for the best. I don't want to be around people. I don't want to talk to anyone. I deactivated Instagram months ago because I was unsupported by the people on there, and I couldn't bear to watch other people's lives go on while mine disintegrated. Barely a soul has reached out to check on me or send condolences, despite the fact I've shared about her death multiple times on the podcast. I have retreated from the world. I am safe inside my cocoon, and that's where I need to be right now. I will be here for a very long time.
The older I get, the more I realize nothing will heal me. Not writing a book. Not finally being loved by a man. Not having status or receiving validation from the outside world. I have no dreams, no ambition, no future plans. There is nothing to look forward to. My mother and father are dead. Nothing can make it better. There is no consolation. There is only the daily struggle to bear the agony.
What is life without her? Without him? I want nothing from this world. Or maybe it's more truthful to say that I want what it cannot give me: I want the ones I love resurrected and given back to me. I want them restored to life. I want all of this to be a terrible, temporary dream.
"She Was Here" by Rachel Grimes