Transitions

I wrote this bit while flying back after saying good-bye to my mother. She died the following morning. This goes for her. And for all who go through the pain of loss.

Anja Blaauw Westland: 2nd Sept 1945 - 7th Feb 2011

Mother, Teacher, Giver: Woman.

Thank You!

Transitions

We all have to go through transitions. Life changes, and we have to adapt to the new situation, the new people around us. We may complain more or less, but we comply with the requirements, in the end. We get used to locations and company alike. It is, it turns out, not that difficult to add experiences, names and faces to our habits. The really tough call is when we are required to give up that, but mostly whom, we consider 'ours.' Then, it hurts! A friend says that "losing someone you love is not a wound, it's a mutilation:" we are attached, just like the arm is attached to the shoulder.

I have long been 'independent,' a grown-up nomad, yet here I am, bleeding soul and dried-out eyes. The general feeling of unreality is periodically shattered by a sorrow that burrows beneath the skin and makes me shake, lost. Still, I know it is hardly going to get me 'ready' for the phone call that will inevitably come. When that does happen, my umbilical cord will be well and truly cut. They say we lose 21 grammes when we die: how much do we lose when the ones we love die?


I may have been 'on my own' for a long time, unafraid to move to another country, to find new wonderful friends. I took a certain pride in it. Only now do I realise that it was because, somewhere in the back of my head, I knew I could return were anything bad to happen. Now I realise I may, in future, come back to the city where I grew up; I may stay (even live!) in the same flat we lived in since I was 17... but I won't be going 'home' anymore. Because there is now a Sleeping Beauty with the dragon and the thorns all twisted and tearing at her from the inside, and there is no gallant prince but blessed, restful morphine.

My beautiful Mam is in Transition, pulling us along, blissfully unaware. It is peculiar, what we can learn to be grateful for. It is time to be strong enough to take up her motto, to see and honour her in it: Always look on the bright side of Life. Because Life is Love, and Love is Joy, and Joy is Life. And I want to remember her as the Joyful being who gave me Life, and whom I so dearly Love.

Twinkle, twinkle, in her eye,

How I loved it when she smiled.

Full of Joy, Love, and Light,

Shining Beacon, guidance bright.

Twinkle, twinkle, in her eye,

How I loved it when she smiled.