The Truth Is, I Need To Experience

Relationships Take Up Energy; Letting Go Of Them, Psychiatrists Theorize, Entails Mental Work. When You Lose Someone You Were Close To, You Have To Reassess Your Picture Of The World And Your Place In It. The More Your Identity Was Wrapped Up With The Deceased, The More Difficult The Loss.

I Was Not Raised With Religion, And I Had No Faith Before My Mother Died. On The Other Hand, When She Died, I Did Not Immediately Feel She Was "gone." I Don't Believe She Is In Something Like Heaven, But I Also Feel That We Don't Understand Much About The Nature Of The Universe. So I Hold On To That Uncertainty, At Times.

My Mother Died Of Metastatic Colorectal Cancer Shortly Before Three P.m. On Christmas Day Of 2008. I Don't Know The Exact Time Of Her Death, Because None Of Us Thought To Look At A Clock For A While After She Stopped Breathing.

I Think About My Mother Every Day. But Usually The Thoughts Are Fleeting - She Crosses My Mind Like A Spring Cardinal That Flies Past The Edge Of Your Eye: Startling, Luminous, Lovely... Gone.

There Are Many Kinds Of Loss Embedded In A Loss - The Loss Of The Person, And The Loss Of The Self You Got To Be With That Person. And The Seeming Loss Of The Past, Which Now Feels Forever Out Of Reach.