Part Three: Darling, For You Will Forever Be In Mine

A first Mother’s Day after loss

[Part One: Breathe In, Breathe Out & Part Two: Verbs in Past Tense]

I have two calendars now. One that keeps me sane, present, grounded in reality. And one with no dates, just rows of dispiriting squares blanketed with the words: another day without her.

For the last six months, I wake up uncertain of the kind of calendar day it might be. But even when I know a Tuesday is a Tuesday, it is still somehow another mournful morning I cannot call her or hug her or beg for more time.

A tiny victory: slowly, I have found the strength to relieve myself of the emotional severity that defined my earlier grief; now, I possess more control in how and when the storm arrives and settles. But if I ever wanted to go a day without thinking of the profundity of this loss, the darkness of her absence, the irreparable hole in my soul, I simply could not. It is always on the calendar.

I look at photos of her, painfully often, and my vision blurs on cue. You know what they say — a picture is worth a thousand tears.

I open Netflix or Hulu or HBO, and I am taunted with a concise interrogation: Who’s watching — SARA or MOM?