And So My Mother Has Died

Mesa Verde from my room

It’s 4pm Mountain time right now and I am sitting out on my balcony that over looks the valley, the view is expansive and unlike any I have ever experienced before. The sun has moved it’s way to the west and there is a breeze that kindly caresses my fresh bathed skin with an early summer hello. I am listening to the chirps of birds I can’t recognize and the buzzing of bugs I can’t yet Identify. This is the farthest I have ever traveled on my own and I don’t feel lonely in the least. Before Mommy died I had been taking time to connect with nature in my own backyard and remember my place in the web of everything and being somewhere so foreign to anything I have known rather than conjuring feelings of isolation, there is a release accepting that this life is so much bigger than I could ever have imagined.

Yesterday was a full day of travel that went perfectly smoothly, not a single airport hiccup and it was a welcome experience to be sure. My final plane ride (it took 3) was a puddle jumper from Denver to Durango. Being small it didn’t fly as high as the 757’s do, gifting the passengers a glorious view of the Rockies all the way. This was wonderful since the turbulence was equally as memorable and all of us arrived in the airport motion sick! Not wanting to “waste” a moment of my mother’s trip I hopped right into adventure and went for a horseback ride in Durango in the mountains. The ride was strenuous for a non-advanced rider such as myself but I was proud that I kept a good seat and didn’t have a panic attack when headed down steep inclines. Suffice to say it was not a ride I would have enjoyed 3 years ago before I started lessons! Then it was off to my Lodge, I got in around 6pm Mt time, thoroughly dehydrated and elevation sick. I put myself to bed at 7 and didn’t crawl back out until a little after 6am. I was reborn a new woman and I was able to actually really see my surroundings.

My eyes feasted on canyons, mountains, and wispy morning clouds. Then much to my surprise and delight I saw 2 wild horses munching away just a few yards away. The strain of the last 2 weeks sliding off my shoulders some and the wonder inside of me breaking free so I was a little less numbed out, in fact I felt alive again. I don’t know what exactly I am searching for out here, maybe it is just the reminder about the mystery of nature. Mommy had wanted to come here after the divorce but she never did, so many of her fears bound her big dreams down. It didn’t stop her from dreaming and sharing that with me, I wish she could have followed that sense of adventure. For a time after she received the diagnosis I mourned the life she didn’t get to live and the choices she made that kept her from things as well. Now that she has crossed over what I feel is grateful that even despite all her fears she passed on to me a lust of seeing and experiencing the world. I choose to be different, to not have a million somedays, but tangible plans. I know I carry her with me in all meanings of the term, and I smile as I sit here alone in the desert knowing she would have been worrying ceaselessly about my safety. She’d say, “That’s what mothers do”. This is still all still fresh enough that when I see something cool, I think I need tell Mommy about that. Then I think the first thing she is going to say is be careful, then I remember everything and have to hope that she is seeing what I am seeing.

So, with that fortitude of my mission I made my plans on my map this morning and ventured off on the trails. Scampered down rocks, told a rattle snake that if they don’t look at me I won’t look at them and scurried on my way, listened to my body’s needs, and thought about Mommy. I think that I had hoped to find her out here, but I am starting to wonder that I may find pieces of myself and who I will become now that she will have to reside in my heart. Tonight I am taking Mommy up to Point Park for the sunset, it’s the highest spot in the whole park and I will be able to see the 4 corners area-such magick!

That is all I’ve got for you for now. This grief process will be an ever changing experience and I know that just like always I will find my way through it all, I just won’t be the same woman. Metamorphosis is never easy, so I will close this out with a quote from Deadpool, “Can beauty come out of ashes?”