The Broken Strings

When I woke up this morning, I was in a good mood. I showered and did my morning routines. I ate breakfast and talked with my roommate. I drove to therapy, talked with my therapist, and then came home. I caught up on some TV programs and then decided to take a nap.

It wasn't until after the nap that I realized I'd forgotten my mom was dead. When I woke up, I wondered if she would be home from work. I wanted to tell her about winning the contest. In fact, I knew I'd been thinking about that all morning. I wanted to tell her my good news. But I can't. I never will be able to again.

One of my big problems with the concept of death is the finality of it. I don't want to discuss afterlives here. What I mean is that the person you were is gone. Your connections and ties to everyone else are gone. Their ties to you are gone as well. My mother is gone from me. She will never be near me again.  And really, as a human, that is so strange. Almost everything else about our lives is temporary. We are children . . . for a while. We go to school . . . for a while. We are young and beautiful . . . for a while. We're always told how things won't last. We should get used to them ending and other things happening. Yet, here at the end, at death, it seems there is no "for a while." That is so out of the sequence of things.

When I was a little kid, like, three or so, I used to see relationships as someone holding a bunch of helium balloons. Each of us was given balloons when we were born, or rather, we were given the strings attached to those balloons. We carried them around with us, but it was okay, because when we got to high places or areas with no road, they could help us float over.  As people would die or we would lose contact with them, it was important to get other balloons (other relationships) to keep you going. And as other people were balloons for you, you were a balloon for them.

Even now as an adult, I sometimes think about losing my mother in terms of the string being broken away in my hand and watching as the balloon just floats off. I've lost other people, of course, and in some cases even people I was closer to than I was to her. Mothers are different though. Your mother is your first string, your first balloon. When you watch that one float away, there is a part of you that maybe never gets past it.