Mourning while Dying

I am strangely comforted by my mother's death.  And there is a noticable lack of loss.  I think a lot of what we grieve when we lose those we love, is the future we imagine(d) with them.  If you are successfully working through the process of mourning your own death, then you have let go of your own future.  It leaves a lot less to grieve for and a lot more to celebrate.

I am relieved my mother has died.  Her pain and suffering was difficult to witness.  It was difficult to decide whether what she thought she wanted was really what she needed.  It was difficult to watch overwhelming caretaking obligations turn into spaces where decisions about interventions needed to be made -- again and again.

She wanted to stay home.  She wanted to avoid conflict.

And her death allowed us to allow this to happen for her.

But I am also relieved that my mother dies before I die.  Death is a lonely concept.  It's about leaving the people I love and entering a space nobody understands.  I like to imagine my mother, waiting in sleep or in some sort of afterlife.

I will go home to my mom.