Showing Up
There’s nothing like the death of a parent to force one into intense introspection.
After my Mom’s funeral, someone said to me, “I could not talk to you because you were with your friends the whole time.”
Hmmm. Interesting perspective. I mean, it wasn’t exactly Girl’s Weekend.
Yes, it was a sunny, spring Saturday and an overwhelming outpouring of celebration of life. There were many touching, beautiful, and memorable gestures about that day.
But big-picture, the task at hand was grueling. I’ve been told there are few things worse than putting your Mom into the ground.
I don’t want to experience any of those things firsthand to know for sure what constitutes “worst.” All I know: burying my Mom was Really. Really. Hard.
From my point of view, I wasn’t “with my friends the whole time.” I was struggling to exist, wrestling with grief alongside an ongoing motherhood battle of my own unfolding, trying to help my daughter through her own major life decision of motherhood, and trying to wrap my brain around these two somewhat surreal situations. I was just stumbling along through the day, flanked by the people who show up for me — the people who choose to stand steadfast next to me whether it be by birth, by initiation, by virtue of being parented as a teenager by the same Moms, or simply by choice.
We all have a choice.
Both mine and my Mom’s friends showed up for me that day in full defensive line. These are the same people who show up at my events and invite me to theirs. Sometimes there isn’t an event, so we manufacture one. Sometimes the event isn’t fun, but we show up anyway because we’re family, united by the bonds that tie us together. Those bonds aren’t always formed by birth.
The people who show up for me are consistently the same faces. And show up they did — in person, on my phone, in my inbox, at my home, and on social — to help me bury my Mom.
It was a tough day. Thank you, all of you, who were there with me to help me get through it. I have the best defensive line a girl could ask for. xoxox
