Join for FREE | Take the Tour Lost Password?
[x]

deviantART

 
About Me Member Deviant of Many Talents Lovely-Whimsy22/Female/United States Recent Activity Deviant for 3 Years
Needs Premium Membership
Statistics 76 Deviations
540 Comments
13,692 Pageviews

The Strangeness of Loss II

Tue Jul 28, 2009, 1:00 PM
This is probably not my best writing, because honestly, I have no idea where to start with something like this. Been poking at it for months and maybe only half of what I've been feeling and thinking has been articulated.


One year ago today, 2 weeks before her 45th birthday, my mother passed away.
It hardly feels like a year. It feels like a thousand years ago and just barely yesterday--eons, seconds--not a year.

I would love to tell you all about her--but the truth is, we knew very little. Maybe that’s a shame, I’m really not sure. But to dwell and linger on a thought like that only gathers up the dust of regret, and like her, I will not die covered in its stifling gray.

Instead I will show you a few of the things I found underneath the rubble.

Everyone must bury their parents sooner or later and maybe because it was ‘sooner’ for me, there was a kind of survivors guilt; a thought that colored every inane action. How am I sitting here, eating breakfast, when she’s not--shouldn’t the world have just stopped?
I realized then that, no, the world will never stop. It just keeps going and going and going. A million deaths every day and a billion others go about their day, eating their breakfast, crossing streets, making copies at the Kinko’s. The world pauses only briefly for the sake of grief, and only for those closest to it. The rest of it just keeps going. We are the living, and so we must live--though we are not unaffected.

Let’s say you find an elaborate pencil drawing of a living room scene. Who ever the artist was clearly loved details. You can almost feel the fabric of the sheer curtains, and the soft chenille of the overstuffed couches. The people in the scene are caught up in some daily routine, reading newspapers, playing with the cat, watching Saturday morning cartoons.
But you’ve only glanced at these things because your eye went immediately to a strange blank spot. The artist seems to have rubbed out a portion of the image. It was clearly a person, because not all of them has been erased. They missed a small portion of their left shoe--you can still see the laces.
You wonder why this person is gone, and not just why the artist took them out--but why did they not fill the space? Why leave such a great, white emptiness? It may grey-over with time and the transfer of graphite particles, and you may become used to it, enough to notice and appreciate the rest of the scene, but it will always be there--an empty space amongst all the brilliant detail.

This is the strangeness of loss.

Maybe it will always be weird, maybe grief decreases only by percentage. Smaller, and smaller still, but never gone completely. I know I still get that little pinch sensation just behind the base of my sternum when I find or see something I know she’d like. Or a hollowed-out sort of feeling during those hard times where anyone else could call up their folks and ask for a little advice or consolation. For weeks after, my brain would pick out all the little, old Asian-looking ladies in floral shirts and glasses in the corner of my eye, and give me a tiny heart-attack.

She hangs around sometimes, like a weird sort of after-image hovering over my reflection. I have her feet, and her scowl and a handful of unfortunate hereditary afflictions. And her morbid sense of humor.
I also retain her affection for turn-based RPGs, junk food and the ocean. And sometimes, she’s there in my dreams, acting as if nothing’s changed. More than that, though, sometimes she’s also just there. Like if you could turn the memory of the way someone sat or smiled or walked into a real, physical sensation.

So here I am, I guess--All alive and with the world still spinning on. How strange.

  • Mood: Yearning

deviantID

Devious Info

  • Current Residence: Oregon
  • deviantWEAR sizing preference: shmall
  • Interests: Sewing, Drawing, Reading, Pirates, Staying alive
  • Favourite movie: Muppets Treasure Island
  • Favourite band or musician: Jason Webley and Tori AMos
  • Favourite genre of music: The good kind
  • Favourite artist: BROM
  • Favourite poet or writer: Shel Silverstien and Dr. Suess
  • Favourite photographer: Dale Myers
  • MP3 player of choice: Buy me an iPod Shuffle?
  • Favourite game: Legend of the Dragoons
  • Favourite gaming platform: Super NES
  • Favourite cartoon character: Michealangelo [You know, the turtle]
  • Personal Quote: I am a deer caught in headlights on the highway of life.
  • Tools of the Trade: My artful headmeats and my tablet

deviantART Community Board

[x]

Comments


:iconll-stock:
Many thanks for faving my stock - do let me know if you get round to using it! :)

LL

--
------------------------------------------------
IMPORTANT- PLEASE READ: Manipulate, paint and doodle to your heart's content - all I ask is you acknowledge your source material when you display and please send a link to me at [link]
:iconlovely-whimsy:
np ^__^ it probably won't make it to devart ever though--I just used it for practice in my sketchbook. Learning to draw guys >.<
:iconlove-will-find-me:
Your Fashion templates are amazing!
They've helped me a lot...would you mind if I added them to my gallery?
<3

--
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~
You are giggles and giggles alone to me.
:iconlovely-whimsy:
sure ^___^ you can post the designs you made using my template--and you can also send me a link to your deviation so I can see it :3
:iconcaitiegirlh2o:
I just wanted to let you know, you inspired me to post my fashion bases to a deviant account. I have also scoured the web looking for bases.

Here's a link to the best that I have found on the Web. I use them occasional when I'm feeling dramatical, but I prefer less leggy croquis, usually.

[link]
:iconjj-dreamworldz:
hey! thanks for the :+devwatch:!!! :D

--
:headbang: rock like fxck

//Proud Member of Fighting Dreamers Productions//
:iconlovely-whimsy:
absolutely--your cosplays are awesome <3
:iconshlomit:
amazing gallery you have!

--
My popular art is Jack skellington I am using Wacom Graphire3 Classic Pen Tablet sensitive to 512 pressure levels
:iconlovely-whimsy:
Thanks ^_^ and thanks for the watch, too :3
:iconphleur:
I love your fashion templates, I'll throw you a dollar if the designs I create with them end up in my portfolio. <3

Site Map