THEY say that grief is like the ocean. It comes in waves.
My grief began when I heard the word, “metastasis.” “How long has she got?” I braced myself for the answer. “Two to three months,” I was told. I calmly accepted my mother’s fate, not knowing that monster waves were still coming.
In the next 72 hours, I couldn’t stop crying—at my desk, in the toilet, in the shower, to sleep.
I didn’t want my mother to see me cry because I didn’t want her to be sad. I didn’t want her to see me crumble because I didn’t want her to be scared. And so I never let my tears fall in front of her because I needed to show my mother that I was on top of everything and that she had nothing to worry about.
I became a relentless storyteller at the dining table, regaling my mother with all kinds of stories. I even tried stand-up comedy. I don’t know how I did it. I’m a terrible actress but with God’s grace, I gave the greatest performance of my life.
Sometimes, you can ride over the wave or dive under it. And sometimes, the wave can take you out completely. The struggle to find the strength to surface for air and swim for shore is real. If you lose your strength, you drown in the waves of despair.
I was so busy working with the doctor, the nurses, the caregivers, to find solutions to what each day would bring my mother, that I didn’t have the time to feel sad. But when I did my errands, these monster waves would come at me with a vengeance.
I’d be sitting in the car, waiting for my turn at the pharmacy or going through the supermarket aisles when suddenly, it would hit me so hard—this pain in my chest. My tears would fall. I never felt so alone in my life. And I didn’t understand why I felt this way.
I’d been alone for a long time, so why would this be any different? And then I realized something. I’d never really been alone. My mother had always been with me. Even when we weren’t physically together, she had been with me, all the time.
Ironically, it is this realization that gives me the strength to surface for air and to swim for shore each time the monster waves come at me because I realize now that you never really lose someone who never stops loving you.
I don’t swim well, but most times, I manage to stay afloat. Yet, despite my lack of swimming skills, I have kayaked, wind-surfed, para-sailed, jet-boated, wake-boarded, stand-up paddle boarded and white-water rafted. I’ve even gone diving—well, tandem diving.
I wasn’t great at any of them, but I managed to survive and actually enjoy doing them despite being scared to death all the while. Some would call me demented. I prefer to call myself intrepid.
“Grief is like the ocean; it comes in waves, ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim.” – Vicki Harrison