One box at a time

As soon as I opened the boxes from my Mom's place today I started crying. As I started to look through more and more of the boxes I cried harder and harder until I finally curled up into a ball on the floor and wailed and cried.

I knew that opening the boxes would be hard but I didn't expect it to be quite as difficult as it was. It's the first time I've cried like that since she died. By having these things it was clear in a way that kind of wasn't before that my Mom was dead. Cleaning out her apartment was hard but we could have been helping her move.

We didn't have a service for my Mom at her request so I didn't have the opportunity to get closure there. I'd also wanted to see her body before it was cremated but I was talked out of doing that by my sisters on the advice of the funeral home. At the time one of the reasons I wanted to see her was to let her touch my soft cashmere sweater, which I'd promised to do when I saw her. That would never have worked because of the decomposition but I also wanted to see her just to see her. I know she wouldn't have looked like I remember her - my sisters were told that decomposition was accelerated because of the pills my she took to kill herself.

There were good reasons why seeing her was a bad idea but I wish I'd stuck to my gut and seen her anyways. I would have been able to say goodbye to her in person and I think that it might have done me some good. Since I lack a time-travel machine, I can't go back and change things and so I need to use what I've got to gain closure. The boxes full of Mom's stuff is what I have and it's what I'll use to deal with her death and to gain the closure I need.

The opened boxes are still sitting in the hallway. At least I've looked in the boxes and know where their contents need to end up. I suspect that it'll take a while to deal with and put it all away. That time will be a great opportunity for me to deal with my grief and if I can only put away one box a day, well, that's better than no boxes a day.

I'll tell you, though, just the act of opening the boxes and looking at their contents left me feeling drained and very sad even after the ativan. I plan to spend the evening sitting in front of the tv watching whatever is interesting while trying to process the emotions I feel.