3 weeks.

It has almost been three weeks since my mom died. And time….she is a motherfucker. Time is supposed to heal, but the longer we get away from when my mom was breathing the same air as me, the worse I feel.

I don’t believe in the word “fair.” Nothing is fair. But goddamnit, being a 40-year old orphan sure doesn’t feel right.

I expected this would be easier, you know….having had a parent die before. I am good at this. I know what to do, right? I am a SME at losing parents.

Wrong.

This is much harder. And it isn’t like I didn’t have time to prepare. My mom was technically under hospice care for 14+ months before she died. But two months prior to her leaving this earth, she was still DMing me about pictures of my kids. I was still able to text her about innocuous stuff in my life. With my dad, he was sicker for so much longer. And even if he wasn’t, I didn’t have the same closeness with him. I adored my dad and there was never an issue with his and my relationship. It was clean and loving and I miss him all of the time. But he didn’t have a daily presence in my life the way my mom did. Even as recently as this past year, my mom and I were texting multiple times a day.

But, our relationship the past year has been hard. I was mad. I was mad that she asked to be in hospice care rather than continue to take her life-prolonging medicine. I was mad that it seemed like she gave up, when there were so many things I wanted her to live for. I was mad that we talked about her death all the time when I had spent 19 years of my life preparing for my dad to die. I was mad when she gave me a bracelet for my 39th birthday that said “When you look at the moon, know how much I loved you.” Couldn’t I get a damn break from the morbid chat?

But, that bracelet was the first thing I put on the day she died. Because she knew. She knew I would need that reminder — that piece of her — after she was gone.

The good news is that I wasn’t mad at the end. When her state of mind became childlike. When she called me scared, and delusional. When she told me about her green little friend named Em, who came and took care of her at night when she was cold. When I called her and told her we were moving her to a hospice center, worried she would hate me, and yet she said “thank you. I need help.” When I visited her every day the last three weeks and every single time, she told me I looked beautiful. When she told me she would always be with me, no matter what. When I promised her that my dad would be there waiting.

The last couple of days were similar to my dad’s last days. She was pretty much sedated and I had been away for work for a couple days. I drove straight from the airport to see her and when I did, it was evident that the end was near. I held her hand in the dark and sang to her. I started with the lullabies she sang me, and then moved on to musicals, and some church songs. I sang and sang and sang. Because when I was sick or scared or sad as a little girl, that’s what she did for me. I sobbed as I sang. Here I was, the child, singing songs to my mom as her body was actively going to sleep for the last time.

Grief is messy but am I really in the grief stage? Or am I just in the “this isn’t real” phase? Because I still want to text her a photo of the outfits I picked out for our family photos. And I want to vent to her about my broken windshield. And I walk into her house expecting her to be sitting on that couch. It’s surreal, and I think it’s because I never really believed she had this disease. I never believed it to be as bad as it was. I always believed we had more time.

Every day, I force myself to close my eyes and “see” the image of her body. Because if I don’t, I won’t believe it to be real. Because if I don’t, I will expect her to comment on the Instastories of my kids each morning like she always did. Or to be on the other end of a text string where I drivel on and on about the mundane parts of my life.

A former professor sent me a beautiful letter today. In it was an article about the importance of living your life and not saving the good perfume or the favorite outfit for a special occasion. It really hit home for me because we all think there is time. But time is a motherfucker.

Sunday is 3 weeks. Wear the good perfume.