After I went through my divorce, I felt as if my slate had been wiped clean. It was a choice I made but there was an emptiness I hadn’t planned on experiencing. For the first few months I kept myself incredibly busy so that the only idle moments I would have would be those moments when I was asleep. One day a co-worker and I were talking and he too, had been through a divorce and he said something I will probably never forget. He said, “You have to let go of your past and right now it sort of feels like there’s nothing left if you do but you have to start creating a new history.” He had been divorced longer than me and had some time to figure some things out.
The past couple of days I have been dealing with an overwhelming amount of grief for my mom. She’s been gone for 9 months now and other than a few come and go moments of missing her, I’ve managed to get along quite well. Quite well, that is, until 3 days ago. My brother is living in her house now and I stopped in to see him 4 days ago. I hadn’t been in the house since he had gotten totally moved in and organized and I was so happy to see how nice he had it looking. Mom loved lamps and I noticed a lamp on the dining room table. It was one my brother made from wrenches and it is really neat. I walked in the dining room to take a closer look at the lamp and then, at that moment, it hit me. Mom doesn’t live here anymore. My brother and I continued our visit and eventually I left. As I drove away I could feel a pit forming in my stomach and slowly but surely a tremendous amount of anxiety followed.
It wasn’t that I’m not happy my brother is living in my parent’s home because I am. My mom so hoped that one of us would live in her house someday and she would be on top of the world to know her handsome son had finally gotten moved in and settled. It’s just that now, I have another slate and it sort of feels like it has been wiped clean. The support I’ve experienced over these past few days has been phenomenal. I have been surrounded by immeasurable amounts of love and support and today, there were less tears. I finally realized each day will bring new experiences and slowly but surely I will create some new history. There will be more picture files added to the rather large amount that have collected since I started my last “history” and they’ll include lots of fond memories that are yet to be made.
We never completely let go of our past. They’re chapters that are written and they stay that way. We learn that over time we can edit a few of the details. We can leave out the bad and continue to celebrate the good times. I’ll never forget my mom. Her memory will be forever engraved on my slate. She left me so well equipped with her common sense approach to everything that matters in life. She told me nothing lasts forever. If you’re really dreading something, just remember, it will get over with. (She told me this when I went to the doctor, flunked my driver’s test, shared my math homework with my friend and got in trouble with the teacher and about a million other times when I found myself dreading something.) She told me people that say bad things about you are just jealous. (She told me this every time someone hurt my feelings and as you know, things like this happen.) She also told me I should always trust my intuition. (She would tell me this whenever I had a tough decision to make. It didn’t make the decision any easier but I’ve learned how right she was.) And one more thing I remember her saying quite often, especially when I was overwhelmed or had a migraine as a result of too much stress, “Life would be so much easier if you weren’t so darn smart.” (My mom always sold herself short because she only had an 8th grade education. She was incredibly insecure and never felt as if she was as smart as others. Looking back on her life, it was anything but easy which was proof that if being smart meant life would be tougher, she proved it to herself her entire life. I’m here to tell you, my mom was one of the most intelligent people I have ever known.
I’m starting to believe that perhaps death doesn’t wipe the surviving person’s slate completely clean. It does make you feel that way at first but then the precious memories of your lost loved one begin to flow through your veins and across your mind and help you to realize they will always be a part of who you are. Perhaps the pain from grieving is just their way of keeping the chalk from being erased from your slate.