death

Mother, wife, teacher, friend, mom is gone.

It has been several months and still I have no words to describe the gaping black hole in my life that has been created by her absence.

No words but there are questions. So many questions. Who will answer the questions I never got to ask her;
When you were my age, did you feel this lost?
This silenced?
At gatherings did the men talk over your head while a thousand unspoken comebacks raced through it?

The questions I have yet to even think of. Who is going to teach me how to mother my own babies?

What do I do mama now that my foundation has been ripped from beneath me? Where do I find the confidence to build a life?

Today I got in the car in the pouring rain and sat in the drivers seat wondering where shall I go? It's the first whole day off I have had in a while and with all my friend's back at university I really was at a loss for what to do today. So I decided to drive out to the country to visit my Nana's grave to say goodbye before I leave to Canada in a few week's. I hadn't visited her there in a long time and as I drove out there I was thinking about her the whole time. And it made me think how sad it is the way we remember people. She died when I was 12 years old, after a long battle with cancer. I remember how much everyone at the funeral kept saying what a great wife and mother she was, and how nice she was, and thinking they were right, but also that they are all forgetting what an amazing Woman she was and how those things they all were saying did not do her justice.

Yesterday, February 26, 2007 at 4:45pm, my grandmother, a woman of the past generations, a proud democrat, a leading activist, california native, ballbusting woman of the new millenium, an amazing person, passed away in a hospital near our house. She was an amazing woman.

Her bookshelves were filled with titles by Barack Obama, Virginia Woolf, Betty Friedan, Issac Asimov, Bill Clinton, L.E. Modesti Jr., and so many other people. She was neurotic to some extent, wildly obsessive-compulsive, deluded to a degree that only bad experiences and age can bring, and a hypochondriac. But she was a woman I will always be proud to have known.

I have a number of posts waiting in the works but I had to get this one out today.

So, apparently Madonna has adopted a little Malawian boy . While I may not always agree with celebrities like Madonna, any attention by the world-at-large being given to the AIDS crisis in Africa is good news to me.

The big reason why this story stood out to me was because it reminded me of my Aunt Stella and her little baby boy Hezekiah. My Aunt Stella worked as the National Director for an organization called World Relief Malawi, in Lilongwe, Malawi. She was and still is passionate about enabling local churches to take a greater role in addressing the AIDS crisis in Malawi (as well as in Rwanda where she worked previously, and Uganda, her home country).

With each passing day, it is closer to the end of October. It is approaching Halloween, approaching NaNoWriMo, but most importantly approaching the anniversary of Daddy's death last year. Each day is another day gone from my life, another day less of the time I have to be unable to see my Daddy. It's also another day closer to the end of my mourning.

What does that mean? It means, as of November twenty-eighth, 2006, I will be allowed to wear colour again. I don't think I will, for sheer dislike of colour and all things happy. I've gone back to my normal, jaded self after a brief urge to be able to wear colour. It means my Daddy passed on nearly one year ago. Almost a year I've lived without him. Somehow I didn't think I would live this long.

Wow. It really has been a long time. I guess lately I’ve just been so sick of writing for school that I convinced myself there wasn’t anything more to write about. One of those lethargic droughts where you’d rather nap for hours than do anything productive, or interesting even. But something really shook me up, recently.

This post is dedicated to somebody that I only briefly knew, who passed away this past week. It was a shock to me, only because she was one of my favorite people in the world – even though I didn’t know her too well on a personal level. But I think she was a lot of people’s favorite person. Ever since I lost touch with her, I would always wonder what amazing things she was up to, where she was in the world, if she was still happy. Devin Adams was one of the most spontaneous, caring, genuine people that I’d ever known. The type that would run up to people and give them hugs or kisses, just because. The type to wear rollerskates to a show. To make you feel better, just by being in the same room with her. The type to be proactive about everything and anything that she felt wasn’t right. One of those people that everybody aspires to be – completely free, aware of the worlds imperfections and yet still happy. Beaming, even. Always.

"For Dianna, the Birthday /Woman/"

This is a bit late, but bear with me. I had totally forgotten about it until a few minutes ago. What is typed above was written on a birthday card for my godparents. My grandmother called me "womanchild" in a diary.

What makes us 'woman'? I am ready to accept the title. Is it because I've gotten my period and grown breasts? Or is it maturity?

Maturity...if it is, then death is what makes me a woman. I have not died. But I'm surrounded by death: my dad and his parents are dead, all of my great grandparents save for two are dead, friends' family members die-two cats died today at my work.

Death is cold. Death is hard. Death is so final.

This morning, at 6:30 am, I was woken from a light sleep that I had just fallen back into at my boyfriend's house by a phone call from my mom.

He was gone.

When I walked into the house I'd spent a good half of my formative years in, my grandma was holding my grandpa's hand. That hand wouldn't squeeze hers back anymore; the only warmth in it was that which was transferred from hers.

That was surreal to me.

When the funeral home came for his body, we were given time to say goodbye. My grandma kissed his forehead and spoke to him; my aunt said her peace; my mom held back while I said my tear-filled goodbyes. My head above his, my forehead fell onto his. I jumped back, startled. Death is so cold.

I can’t express how much I cared for her. I don’t know if she knew how much I loved her, especially since I wasn’t there for her in the last three years of her death. Her will was amazing, as she spent over twenty years trying to outrun the cancer in her breasts. Even when she couldn’t get out of bed, she kept loving.

She taught me to love myself. To love my life and to help others love life. Her amazing soul will live longer than her body and I feel so touched to have a piece of it in my heart. More than anyone, she influenced the woman that I am becoming. Although she gave me many books, my first and favorite changed my life, "Succulent Wild Women."

Yesturday was Daddy's birthday. I spend the day sleeping, and the evening with my family. I saw people I haven't seen in ages, my aunt Tanja, my aunt Nikki, and Jacob, my seven-week-old cousin who is just plain adorable.

We honoured him, and we had many discussions. Afterwords, me and Nan, as well as my mother, went to Nan's for various reasons before walking and talking. Nan is currently attempting to get ID. Which, apparently, you need ID to get for some reason...ANYWAY.

After this we went to mother's boyfriend's. No big deal, we played video games. One of which has completely FLAT women. I mean, really, they have next to nothing. Yeah it's not the usual busty babe stereotype...BUT HOW CAN THAT MANY WOMEN BE SO FLAT? Shouldn't there be a little more variety?

Tomorrow is a day I will forever hold close to my heart, and forever celebrate in tears. Tomorrow is July 27th, the birthday of a dead man. The birthday of Daddy.

I loved Daddy. We were so extremely close. I remember all the hugs, the naps, the role playing...everything. I remember when he was diagnosed, somehow believing he would live.

I remember the last birthday. I remember how we went up to the cottage, which was so much fun. I remember how we spent the time there. I went into, and loved, the water, and he worried and made sure I had a life jacket on 'cause of the fact that I can't swim.

I've been talking a lot to my friend Nikki. She lasted about two weeks without talking to me-more than I expected from her.

We had some really...interesting discussions. There was the talk of death, and why everything happens. And why it all happens to screw up when it comes to our lives and not everybody else's.

I think it's time to pry into these subjects. Partially because I'm bored of debating violence and war for a while, and I want to talk about something else. When a debate lasts a long time sometimes you need a break, really. Partially because I wanted to show you more of my life.

I cannot believe this.

My great grandmother, the most independant woman I have ever met, is dead. To be totally honest, our family has expected this for two years but, still, the shock of getting that one phone call at 5am to tell me what happened is horrifying. When we, my mom, brother, sister and her BF and myself, went to the funeral to hear stories, I was truly shocked.

Her own SON portrayed her as a "golddigger"- that she went out with men just to get money. THAT is not true. My grandmother, his older sister, set him straight in front of the whole family. What made him think that He could get away with saying that about his own mother in front of the whole family? He had nothing kind to say about her at all. Why do people, even a few women, do that? My grandmother brought up the point that he was six months when his dad died and that she never, not once, went out with another man after he died. He tried to say that his independant, worked for everything,despite what men said mother, was a "golddigger". How can he say that? That was a truly sad day for our family indeed.

After Daddy's death I decided to go into the traditional year of mourning. Basically ever since then it's been black, dark blue, and for good measure dark red. (In other words...my regular outfit -like 10% colour.)

Well, to be honest, I'm sort of...bored...of being in all black 'n' stuff. Partially 'cause I've put up with 'emo' longer than any one person should have to.

So...colour? I've been thinking about getting myself something colourful, or sewing something colourful (which might be easier if I knew how to sew, but whatever.) But I'm not too sure-it hasn't been a year yet, and it won't have been a year until the end of November-so it's like breaking a promise. Not that I, uh, haven't broken promises before, but this one's to honour Daddy...I'd still wear some black, but...

OK, first off I'm sorry I'm flooding you with entries here. I promise I'll go easy on you for a little while as soon as I'm done with this one.

If you read my last post, you'll notice that most of the comments mention my mother and her serious issues. She was sexually abused as a child, and she has thought about suicide-although she never told me these things, I know it's true.

But then people sort of annoyed me. Because it sounds like they're assuming I know nothing about depression, and that's part of my problem with my mother. Well, it's not, and that's complete poppycock.

My depression comes and goes, it's been doing that for...well since Daddy died. The night Daddy died, I almost committed suicide. I went through a stage of almost attempting it every night until about mid-January, when I switched to my more common form of depression.