…of many things.
We all deal with loss of a loved one in our own way. Some of us go silent. Some talk about anything and everything other than the individual. Some pick fights because they’re angry and they don’t know why, and they just have to vent or explode. Some of us bury ourselves deep in any project other than what we were working on when the news came.
That would be me.
For those handful of people visiting here who aren’t aware of it, my best friend, business partner and domestic partner, CJ Cherryh’s mother passed away recently. Carolyn, of course, flew down to Dallas for the funeral, but we really couldn’t justify the cost of both of us going down, so I stayed here and kept the house in order for her return. Alone, unable to participate again in the Celebration of Life of someone who was very important to me, I did just that, buried myself in the plants, the pond and getting the fishtank back in shape.
I realize (duh) I haven’t posted for a long time. That’s because (a) I was too wiped at the end of the day to do anything constructive and (b) with some of the things I got myself involved in, I was kind of afraid Carolyn would worry (about her fishtank!) if she happened to check up on my blog, which added stress she didn’t need, and (c) if I tried to make the details of those adventures in tank-sitting funny, it would be disrespectful, somehow, to Lois.
Funny how we rationalize our desire to just hunker down and avoid thinking. Lois would be all for anything that made those she cared about laugh, so… in tomorrow’s installment of Necessity’s a Mother, I’ll bring you all up to speed on the State of the Fishtank and the Pond.
Meantime, a word about mothers. The loss of a parent is hard, period. The loss of a mother…well, that’s just unique. Biologically-speaking, you’ve only got one to lose. Even for those of us who tended to be papa’s daughter/son, Mothers are special. In this day and age, we can exist without a physical father ever coming near us. We aren’t yet to the point where we don’t still need our human incubator. (and I use that term in the most loving and respectful sense.)
And that leaves a lifelong impression, no matter the subsequent actions of said “incubator”. Somehow, children find a way to excuse the most outrageous acts on the part of their mother.
And the good ones…well, there’s a simple little song my sister and I sang for my mom, back when we were kids that pretty much sums it up. To this day, I remember the words:
“M” is for the million things she gave me,
“O” means only that she’s growing old,
“T” is for the tears she shed to save me,
“H” is for her heart of purest gold;
“E” is for her eyes, with love-light shining,
“R” means right, and right she’ll always be,
Put them all together, they spell “MOTHER,”
A word that means the world to me.
—Howard Johnson (1915)—
With love, to all the mothers out there.
Ja ne!