I have been so so so sad since my mom died like just experiencing a level of crushing despair I dont think i can possibly even attempt to put into words but somehow miraculously still baseline functional through it all. I feel like ive unlocked access to a new set of emotions that I didnt know it was possible to experience and I would give anything not to be experiencing but at times it is weirdly awe inspiring to be feeling these things at all. I have a friend who said “early grief is like a hallucinogen” and every day is proving him right.

I have been knitting a lot, my mom loved to knit and she was in the middle of making me a pretty complex sweater vest pattern when she died and my goal is to get good enough at knitting that I can finish it. I’ve already finished a balaclava and a triangle scarf and a sweater vest and a hat and I’m about to start a sweater and also a baby hat for my pregnant friend who is due in july.

I also have been writing a lot, or what feels like a lot but is probably not actually all that much considering how busted my energy levels have been. I will present my mfa thesis on Wednesday and graduate from this program where I’ve spent the last 3 years. I so wish my mom could be here to see me do this but at least I will get to be with my dad and my sister and my friends and mentors. The fact that I can still write at all, and come up with things to say on the page, and have ideas about what I want to write next is a crazy gift bc at first I didn’t think I’d be able to do it at all but slowly over the weeks and months it has returned.

I’ve been calling my grandma every week. I’ve been talking to my dad and my sister as much as they’ll let me haha. I’ve been going to therapy and grief group. I can listen to music again albeit not certain songs. I can read. I can cook. I can go outside. It’s springtime here in the midwest and summer is just around the corner which is my favorite time of year here but it makes my heart ache to think that I have to experience this summer without her, and every summer without her from now on. Her birthday is in June she would have been 60

I have been thinking about Alex Pretti and Renee Good a lot. I have been thinking about all the families who have been ripped apart by ICE in my city and nationwide in recent months. I have been thinking about children in Palestine and Iran who’ve lost their mothers and fathers. I can’t help but physically shake with rage and horror that anyone would knowingly inflict an even worse version of the pain I’m feeling now on any other human being. It’s beyond cruelty and I want to see all the perpetrators punished in this lifetime and in whatever comes next. My mother’s death was peaceful and blameless - the short version is she had an undiagnosed heart defect that should have been lethal far sooner, and she died painlessly in her sleep - I can’t imagine how much worse I would be feeling if I knew someone or something had done this to her and to me and to my family. Unfathomable evil in this world

I can’t believe it’s already been over 2 months since she died. Each day feels like it was both a million years long and less than a second. I feel like I’m getting farther and farther away from her with each day and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Sometimes this feeling is a comfort and sometimes it is like a physical pain in my body that I would do anything to stop but I can’t

I feel like every week or every couple of days honestly someone I know says or does something for me that just shocks me with its kindness and grace. I find it hard to believe that I am worthy of the level of care and generosity that people have been offering me but they continue to offer it nonetheless. I try to hold onto those moments

In some ways I feel like the hard part is over and in other ways I feel like its just begun.