Straight Edge Life

My mom died a year ago this weekend. To be honest it seems like it was yesterday that she was here in this house working in the garden with a couple of loaves of zuchinni bread in the oven. The house is still filled with memories of her. I’m doing what I can to make it “my” place, torn between completely emptying the house and starting over and accomodating artifacts of my memories as her son in this house. It’s tough to make peace with this. When my mom died she had been sick for a long time. I’ve made peace with her death because I know she’s not suffering anymore. And that is far more important than my sadness and anger over losing her. I would prefer she be in peace and be without her than have her here and in pain. Ironically I had to make a choice to euthanize one of my cats this week as he was facing a long and painful death from a tumor. The same reasoning applies only I had to help make the choice to send Barney on his way. A strange twist I wasn’t happy to be forced into managing. But peace with this house, me, and memories of my mom is far more elusive. At the same time I’m so excited to be here, I love the house, the neighborhood, everything, but I’m also hesitant to work on or in the house because everything reminds me of her and I don’t want to get rid of it. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s sad. It’s always emotionally charged. I know this is part of my desire to leave town and work in a completely mobile fashion. It’s hard to be here. It’s hard not to be overwhelmed by emotion. Both happy and sad. I occasionally run into people who knew her. Dylan, from a group of friends I was never especially close with in high school, when I ran into him last weekend, told me how much he really liked my mom. How she had suprised him with her genuine interest in him and his interests. She had sent him a book on dinosaur evolution after a conversation they had on the subject a few months earlier. This was the kind of person she was. Genuine and suprising. I know that eventually this house will change. It will no longer be a dusty museum to our memories of her. But it’s going to take me and the rest of my immediate family finding peace with a different kind of memory of my mom. If I hit the road for a while and find solace in retreat, so be it. I’m patient. This is something my cheating wife, Nichole, didn’t understand. She was urgent to purge everything and start from scratch with nothing related to my mom or my family in this house at all. I am happy to let this unfold as it unfolds. I’ve spent too much time trying to push things into a conclusion. It’s about the journey. I know that’s a bit of a cliche, but it’s fitting enough for my situation.