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Coping with loss: One year later
The first thing I wanted to do after learning how hard it is to be a mother was to call my own mother and apologize.
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Coping with loss. (Shutterstock/*)
The first thing I wanted to do after learning how hard it is to be a mother was to call my own mother and apologize.
"Did I ever do that to you?" I wanted to ask her. "I'm sorry if I ever made you stay up all night, and I'm sorry if I threw my food and made you pick up every single grain of rice from the floor."
Most of the time, though, I would just stare at my phone, then continue picking up rice grains from the floor. My mother passed away last year. She would have turned 57 next week.
I never thought she would be gone so soon. Then again, I never thought she would be gone at all. She was a constant part of my life. It just never occurred to me I'd have to live in a world without her in it.
She had a bacterial infection that spread all over her body through the blood. I remember seeing her struggle to breathe, with a ventilator next to her bed; I was worried, but not quite afraid that she would not make it.
It wasn't an unfamiliar sight. Just months before, I had seen my daughter with a similar machine. If a tiny infant can make it, surely my mother—a grown woman who was healthy and standing up straight just a month before—will get through it, right?
Wrong. She passed away two days after her 56th birthday.
That day, though, I had some other things to worry about. My baby daughter had yet another respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection. After the funeral, I had to take her to the hospital. Due to dehydration and shallow breathing, she had to stay in the hospital for a couple of days.
In a way, the quiet of the hospital ward gave me a chance to grieve properly, to confront the feeling of loss. At my parents' house, guests were coming all day, every day. I understand they only wanted to convey their condolences, but I couldn't stand answering their questions about how she had died for the gazillionth time.
People grieve in different ways. For me, it helped to be alone for a while.
What saddens me the most is that my daughter will never know her grandmother. I don't have pictures of them together; not a single one.
I'd show her my mother's photos and tell stories about her -- I wonder if that's enough.
Not a day goes by without me wishing we could talk just one more time. It was only when I become a mother myself that I started to feel her struggle.
Being a stay-at-home-mother is tricky. It's so easy to lose your identity in the midst of motherhood madness.
I want to tell her I see her, not only as Mama, but also as an individual of her own.
But mostly I just want to ask her about her day, what she's cooking, what she's planning to do for the weekend. I want to send her photos of my daughter and ask for recipes. Simple things that now mean the world to me.
It's been a year, and the loss is still so raw and fresh.
I am still learning how to cope.
***
Annisa Ihsani is a writer, book nerd, and mother of one. She is the author of middle-grade novel "Teka-Teki Terakhir" (Gramedia Pustaka Utama, 2014).
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