Why I Live with My Mother

Article Tools

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

THEN MY DAD died, and my new life came to a screeching halt. Well, not so fast—he’d been ill for years, and once the end was undeniably near I started moving back home, bit by bit.

I did double duty that spring. Half the time I had to play it cool for my friends and tried (and sometimes failed) to keep it together at work. The other half I spent with my parents in the house where I grew up, watching a horror story unfold. I felt guilty whenever I wasn’t there. I’d start out some evenings rolling from bar to bar with Kristen but end up so overcome with anxiety that I’d catch the last train home, claiming I wanted to sleep in my old bed. Every time I got there to find my dad in his chair in front of the TV, a large black blossom of dread bloomed inside me, uncurling in my middle and spreading throughout my body with a little shiver. He didn’t look right; he looked less right each time. His face had a grayish cast that was somehow also green. The chemo wasn’t working and, even though nobody would say so, I knew our time with him was limited.

After learning how to fake it like an expert, it didn’t take long for me to feel quite alone in the world. And I certainly was alone on the train headed home every couple of days, thinking and crying in those straight-back seats while I stared out the window. Having my own place was no longer the freewheeling single gal’s adventure it was supposed to be, but moving back home would be like saying what everybody had deemed unsayable: that my dad was going to die.

As is the case with many fretted-over decisions, this one was made for me in the end. Dad died in June. The very next day I dragged myself to my apartment to retrieve my beloved cat and on the way back it dawned on me: I was going home. Home was home again. I couldn’t believe it. Half-crazy with misery, I didn’t bother bringing any clothes back with me. I just went to work every day for the next month wearing the same black T-shirt and flip-flops. In fact, I didn’t fully move the rest of my things until the day before the lease was up. I was emotionally crippled, a zombie, grieving so hard my chest ached for weeks, but still it felt like another defeat to peel the posters off the walls of my first real place. Life had challenged me to a battle and tromped me.

THIS ALL HAPPENED a year and a half ago. Sometimes it seems like a lifetime ago, other times like it’s happening all over again. Such is the nature of grief. But I’ve been healing all this time, getting little bits of myself back. And there have been a few pleasant surprises along the way, too, like rediscovering home.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print