By early September 2021, I had been feeling like William the Conqueror. I was months into a fitness and dietary regime that saw me continuously shedding pounds, and getting almost within striking distance of my goal weight. Physically and mentally, I felt like I had energy and self-discipline I had never known. Self-improvement had become a compulsion, seemingly with a will and momentum of its own. In short, it felt like I had reprogrammed myself in a way that simply eliminated negative habits and imprinting from my inner algorithms.
And then I got the phone call that my mother was in the hospital after suffering a stroke that left her in a helpless and uncommunicative state. As humorist Allen Saunders once observed, and as John Lennon would slightly paraphrase decades later, “Life is what happens to us while we’re busy making other plans.”
As of that phone call, my time was taken up with driving my father to and from the hospital, while also trying to keep my children on track with their own daily routines. As for my mother, things were looking worse with each passing day. I won’t go into details here except to say that there were mounting complications, particularly with keeping her adequately nourished, that left us as a family facing the ultimate painful decision. As the doctor had said, for my mother there was simply no coming back from this — the only merciful option was to take her off life support.
So we decided to let her go, and after almost a week of stubbornness on her part, she was gone.
Through all of this, in those moments alone behind the wheel, I found solace in Kris Kristofferson’s album, This Old Road, which had now become even more of a source of gravel-voiced comfort and commiseration. In particular, the title track was resonating with me in a new way, as I couldn’t help but hear it from my father’s perspective at a time when he was saying goodbye to the woman who had been his true love and best friend from the moment they met in the mid-1950s as awkward teenagers.
Also through all of this, I got completely off-track where exercise and healthy eating are concerned — the employees of local drive-thrus and the hospital’s Tim Horton’s had become my personal chefs, albeit on a per-meal basis. As for exercise, the word simply left my vocabulary altogether.
In my mother’s final week in this world, I did enough full-body weeping and wailing to last a lifetime. Although technically she wasn’t gone yet, my life with her had come to a close, and by the time she had finally passed away, I felt many emotions, but intertwined among them was just enough of a strand of relief that I was able to push through the next few days on autopilot as my father, my sister, and I set the funeral process in motion.
Over the next months, I never did recover my food and exercise regimen, though I at least shifted my cooking (mostly) from the fast food kitchens of Ottawa’s west end to my own, and was gradually incorporating more healthful items back into my menu.
In some ways, I felt like I was still on emotional autopilot, as I never did have that mandatory Oscar® moment of unabashed ugly crying that the movies and TV have trained us to expect. (Extra points if it happens outside in the rain!) I even felt a bit guilty about it, as if there was something wrong with me for not being more outwardly demonstrative in my grief.
Ultimately, however, there is no standard process for feeling or showing grief, as it is a very personal thing, and how you feel or show it is never anyone else’s business. Also, the loss of a loved one isn’t something that just happens in a fleeting moment — it’s something you live with and unpack for a long, long, time. (Personally, I don’t think you ever “get over” losing someone, nor should you. Rather, you eventually figure out how to live and make peace with their physical absence.)
I am happy to report that over the past few weeks, it feels like that emotional layer of ice that had formed after my mother’s death has finally started to break up. It had served a purpose while the necessary end-of-life business was being carried out, but has long since outlived its usefulness. In unexpected moments, I’ve been wiping away tears, be it at a piece of music that catches me off-guard, an old picture, or at coming across any object that reminds me of her. Strangely, while waters of sorrow have finally started to trickle (and occasionally gush) over the top of my inner dam, I also feel like I’m less constantly thinking about my mother’s passing, even if she is never far from my mind. If anything, my thoughts have been shifting more to her life than her death.
At the same time, I have also found myself climbing back on my horse where my health is concerned, though it feels like it wasn’t through any conscious planning — one morning I just woke up, and rebooting my healthy eating regimen seemed like the right and natural thing to do that day, and a week later, I haven’t looked back. I’m also back to daily exercise, even if I’m off to a slower start in that regard. I’m already noticing improvements in sleep quality and state of mind, despite the challenges of the past six months. Also, I’ve already lost a few pounds, so there’s that.
Publilius Syrus (85–43 BC) put it more succinctly than Allen Saunders when he wrote, “Man intends one thing, Fate another.”
Indeed.
True as that may be, I can’t be held captive to what may or may not happen. Syrus notwithstanding, I can only focus on what I intend, and follow through on it as diligently and sincerely as I can. I take it as a given that where loss, grief, and other disruptions are concerned, life will have a whole lot more where those came from. I also assume that I won’t feel ready when it comes, and that it will (figuratively) knock me to the ground all over again.
Of course I’m going to fall down again. And again. And again. But it’s not the falling down that matters, it’s the getting back up.
No matter how many times it takes.