When grieving, I know to brace myself for the “firsts” …first holiday season, first Mother’s Day, first Father’s Day, etc…  This Friday will be Mom’s birthday. She would have been 86. My photo memories have already sent me last year’s pictures of her birthday celebration. My heart was taken back to the day and I smiled, because I am bracing myself. I know we celebrated her well while she was sick. Each year, we had birthday hats and made it a little party. She was an event planner down to every detail, and we knew she would appreciate our efforts, even if she didn’t remember them or us. It was important.

But it’s not the brace-yourself moments that get me. It’s the unexpected-off-guard moments. Like the sight of daffodils blooming. I caught the yellow out of the corner of my eye, like a caution flag waving at me. My heart did a flip flop and my eyes filled with tears. A sudden and surprising reaction to a flower. I was confused at first as to why the sudden melancholy, but then I remembered…ah, yes…grief. Hiding away, waiting to pop up when the blossoms did.

Not only is the daffodil Mom’s birth flower, it was also her favorite. She loved the promise of spring that comes wrapped up in their bright yellow petals. When they popped up each year, Dad started harvesting them for little bouquets for her. She put them in small vases and sprinkled them around the house. A precursor to warmer weather and color returning to the brown dead trees. The daffodil is first up and the wild-haired forsythia isn’t far behind. They dance in the March winds together like old friends who know how to bear up in storms of all kinds.

The thing is that I grieve the loss of Mom herself, but I also grieve all the little places she isn’t, like walking among the daffodils. Those places remain, but without her, so there is a gaping hole. It’s like an incomplete painting. I look at it and it seems unfinished somehow. Her essence is gone, yet, I am still here. To be alongside her now, I have to carry her. It’s the separation that causes the pain. The things and places she loved show up in daily mundane moments. That is where the one-two-punch to the gut comes in. It isn’t the brace-yourself times that cause the tears because I prepare for those.   

Just when I think I have turned the corner, or at least am tip-toeing towards turning the corner, that I take several steps backward. I am doing the grief cha-cha. Two steps forward, three steps back. Getting out of bed ready for the day, then being so exhausted from making coffee that I need a nap. Feeling the sun on my face, then floundering around not being able to figure out what I need to do for the day. It is all so disorienting. Overall, I am up and moving again, most days. Getting out, going places. Walking in the woods. Doing yoga. Making pottery. Working on a grief book. Trying to go with the flow. Bracing myself.