A Lost Child

It’s very unsettling the way this whole process is happening. My bad days are followed by good ones in which I can handle most anything. I accidentally listened to one of Mom’s old voicemails the other day and I was totally okay. No tears or lasting sadness beyond what was due. But I can feel myself declining into the bad days again. Yesterday I was feeling pretty low for no reason and last night I dreamed about her. She was “sick-Mom” and for some reason was meeting Andrew, Trevor and I at a cabin in the forest somewhere. She was supposed to have arrived, but was missing and we were all panicking. She showed up eventually, but was pretty worse for wear. I woke up out of this dream and felt the pressure again: the tightness in my chest that I feel only on bad days when I can’t shake the sadness and walk around constantly plagued by the understanding that she is no longer of this world and I can never reach her again. This is what heartbreak feels like. These are the days where I feel like a lost child not just worried about being forever separated from a parent, but completely certain of it. It makes me feel so small.

And I know that it will pass, but I also know that it will come again. And I don’t know when this cycle will ever end.