Passage

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I am on a bridge from one part of my life to the next. I don't even know all the ways in which things will seem different when I return, but they surely will. Until then, I am in exile, and maybe that's good.My mother passed away on Sunday morning, January 4, and it was shocking to me, despite its inevitability. Her days had become quite bleak in the last few months, and she was clearly fading and disengaging, but it somehow seemed she always was and always would be. I guess you can never be prepared for the loss of someone so fundamental to your history.

And not just history.  She was real and current to me too, for I visited her frequently and tried very hard to tend to her growing needs.  I often wrote about this here, in fact, and I never denied that it was an exhausting and depressing job, and she took up a lot of space in my head and my days.  I even thought I'd feel mostly relief when she finally passed away, as old and weary as she was, but of course it's not that simple.In the last chapter of her life, she had become a very endearing, childlike, and appreciative person. I would make the trip to Orange County bringing things she needed and little treats, and I'd take her out for ice cream, or a wander through a thrift store, or just a drive in the neighborhood, depending on what she could handle. She was always so happy to see me. I also advocated for her at her residence, encouraging activities and talking to staff about her care, staying on top of things. I didn't want her to be anonymous or forgotten, and by and large she wasn't.

By acting like I loved her, I genuinely grew to love her, and I'm going to miss her terribly sometimes. New recognitions of all the ramifications of her absence will roll over me like waves, now and then knocking me over. It's going to hurt.I'll probably write about it later, but now I am just experiencing the usual cocktail of emotions that bereavement brings, and I need some time.  I need to stand still, right here, and be. It's strange to be in England for this standing still right here, but the trip was already booked, and changing it seemed complicated and pointless.

And so a few days ago I was in California helping to arrange for my mother's burial in New York, and now I am in Oxford talking about my daughter's wedding. Sometimes the cycle of life seems to spin in a surge of sudden speed. Or a jolt.

I've been jolted into a different reality.I feel faraway and fragile.  And I am so, so tired. I feel like I'll never be not-tired again.

We're staying in the attic room of a bed and breakfast in our daughter's neighborhood. There's a pub on one corner and a tattoo parlor on the other, and the place is run by a retired couple named Neil and Dot who sit and talk with us in the mornings, as gracious as old friends, and serve us coffee and fresh croissants, fruit and cereal, breads and jams. Neil has a bit of poetry in him, although he denies it when I say so, but I hear it in the way he talks about making a toy wooden boat for his grandson, and the beautiful French cigarettes he briefly smoked in his youth, and the interior of a country church, with its smells of damp and incense and old oak.It helps to find nice people.

But it's cold and rainy and the wind has a mean edge. I'd forgotten how much I hate the cold.  I went to the botanic garden today hoping to sit for awhile in a warm steamy greenhouse with the fragrance of an orange tree to console me, but it was closed.  We hurried along the High Street towards the shops to find a woolen cap and Wellingtons for Monte.  There were little puddles of golden lamplight beneath our feet, and brown leaves splayed out on cobblestone, and above, a flat gray sky.

There were folk musicians in the pub the other night singing songs about loss and loneliness and longing. Everyone knew the sentiments, if not the lyrics, and it was warm in there, and cold outside, and we were all in search of comfort, one way or another.

Later, my daughter made us soup, the best I ever had.It helps to see your daughter.We'll be here for two weeks because that's the way we booked it, and it feels like a forced exile in a way, but maybe it's good to look out and see something different, even if it's chilly.I'll use the time to sort out whatever is in my heart and to summon up the strength and spirit I need for whatever comes next. I want to be changed for the better, somehow. I want to have learned something.

It's a passage.