Losing My Mother, Chapter Two: Tribe

I am incredibly blessed with friendship right now. I do believe the Universe has been conspiring on my behalf these last few months to be sure I have a support network of love to support me as I process this grief.

I had to get some errands done yesterday in preparation for traveling and didn't feel like I could drive (my eyes were so swollen and irritated from all the crying the night before) or face the world by myself. So I asked a new but very special friend if he would drive me around town.

You have to understand that I am not accustommed to asking for help in any way whatsoever. I have done most of the hard things in my life completely alone. I was a single mother for 10 years with very little support from family or friends. Even when I was married I still did most things on my own. I carried the weight of providing/caring for my family on my shoulders alone for most of the marriage. I've gotten used to be on my own, especially dealing with the hard things in life independently. It's a new experience for me to ask for help/support. It's a new experience to know that help/support even exists for me.

So my friend ran me around town and took me to lunch. We had some great conversations about what I'm experiencing. I can process things at every level with him and he understands. He also has some evolved perspectives, helping me not to make too many judgments about my mother or the family's response to her the last few years. He's a good influence in my life. I feel like I asked for something that might have been too much for a friendship that is only a couple weeks old, but he came through. The Universe has given me quite a gift in him.

Then I decided to call on my tribe to keep me company through the evening. The other option was hiding out in the cave of my bedroom by myself, which I didn't feel would be good for me. I had a meeting scheduled with my partners, so we changed it to a hold-space-for-April dinner gathering and invited other tribemates. My seven closest friends spent the evening feeding me, touching and massaging me, loving me, listening to me, and even making me laugh. There was some intense truth telling, too, both about my mom and her life, and my own choices and the opportunities for healing that exist.

It may be the closest thing to a memorial that will happen in response to my mother's death. There is no one to invite to a memorial. All she had was my sister, me, the kids and her stepsister, who cannot travel due to a back injury. We know she wanted her remains to be put in the same location as her mother's, which we won't be able to do right away since it's in San Diego and we're not even sure exactly where (it's shocking how many things we don't know, but that's another post).

I just can't even put into the words the immensity of my gratitude for my tribemates, these souls who would hold space for me on one of the most painful days of my life.

These days in Las Vegas will be hard. But I have the comfort of knowing that I have a family to come home to. A family that gives me the kind of selfless love and presence that my mother never quite seemed capable of.