Today, my mother has been gone for one month. It doesn’t really feel like she is gone. When I say gone, I mean to say that she died. She did not go away on vacation to some far-flung land to bask in the sun and drink gin and tonics all day. Although in my mind I hope that she is doing just that. In her version of heaven there is no snow and the world is all beach. Warm, sunny beach. Where you only get tan and never get burned and you never have to eat soup. Only crab cakes. I digress. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we are cleaning up both figuratively and physically. Life goes on for those of us left here without her. We still have to work and cook and clean and all the things that we do. We must tidy up and put away the things that were hers. But how do you clean up a life when it ends? These are the things adulthood is made of. The things that nobody talks about. The things that you, yourself, do not even realize until you are, in the midst of doing them.
If you could see inside my head, you would understand!