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Nothing prepared me for the loss of my mother. Even knowing that she would die did not prepare me. A mother, after all, is your entry into the world. She is the shell in which you divide and become a life. Waking up in a world without her is like waking up in a world without sky: unimaginable.
the people we most love do become a physical part of us, ingrained in our synapses, in the pathways where memories are created.
One book about grief that I found convincing—and strangely consoling—was by Colin Murray Parkes, a British psychiatrist and a pioneer in bereavement research.
In his heart of hearts he often believes that the dead do not return yet he is committed to the task of recovering one who is dead. It is no wonder that he feels that the world has lost its purpose, and
no longer makes sense.
“Your mother is not there,” he explained. “And we are dealing with her absence. It makes us feel, I think, a loss of confidence—a general loss, an uncertainty about what we can rely on.”
A person was present your entire life, and then one day she disappeared and never came back. It resisted belief. Even when a death is foreseen, I was surprised to find, it still
feels sudden—an instant that could have gone differently.
Grief requires acquainting yourself with the world again and
