Winter

A short note on grief and loss

In mid-October 2016 I was sitting in my little single room in the apartment in France. I had a little box of French cookies next to me on the bed, and I was beginning to read “Qui Es-Tu Alaska” (Looking For Alaska), which I’d been putting off for awhile. I was bored. While there was wired Ethernet internet in the apartment, I hadn’t managed to connect yet, so I was on my third week sans-internet. My roommate was out, and it was early evening, too early to begin thinking about reheating last night’s chicken cutlet and lentil ragout on the stove.

Then I got a phone call from my mom.

I’d known my mother wasn’t feeling great when I left for France. I had spent the summer living with her in suburban Connecticut, where she’d been struggling with issues related to her gut. She had been seeing doctors, trying to get the myriad of intestinal-related problems under control. But it wasn’t so serious back then, to me at least, so I hadn’t left with any grave concerns. This phone call changed that. She had been to a doctor who told her the issues were far more serious than previously believed. She may not have long to live.

Lot’s of things happened in the two weeks that followed. I came home. My mother had a sixtieth birthday party. She was hospitalized. We met with funeral homes and lawyers and doctors. Family and friends poured in. And I had a choice to make – whether or not to go back to France and complete my gap year teaching English. It was one of the hardest choices to make, given very limited information, a stressful environment, and what at the time was a life or death scenario. So, while my mother was in the hospital, I made a 48-hour trip back to France to collect my things and close my French bank account for good.

I got home prepared and expecting to spend the next few weeks as the last weeks with my mother. I got a part-time job at a grocery store so that I wouldn’t constantly be hovering over her day after day. I tried to settle into life, this sort of “new normal.” People brought over home cooked meals and came to visit with my Mom. She rested, and greeted visitors, and made her preparations. Time passed. And yet as time passed, something remarkable happened – it wasn’t the end. My mother wasn’t feeling stellar, but no longer was she on her deathbed. Other possibilities came to light – perhaps the doctor was wrong in the prognosis, or at least in the timing of it all?

As we toyed with this notion, my mother set Valentine’s Day as her Victory Day – the day she would definitely decide that the prognosis was not a perfect fit for her illness, and that she thus needed to move on. It’s not that she’ll never kick the bucket – it’s that it probably won’t be in the next few months, so it’s time to move on with life.

The time between early November and late February was not easy. It was a tremendously stressful period not only for me and my family, but for so many of my friends and support network. I can truly say I learned what it means to be a friend – what it means to ask for and give support, and the true power of love. I learned about grief and loss. How we can feel loss for a person, or for an idea; loss of a future; a lost opportunity.

At the beginning of my gap year, I said I wanted to use the year to grow and learn. The universe has a funny sense of humor. But I did grow. And I did learn. Though it has been a roller coaster ride we’ve exited safely to the right with all of our belongings, and life goes on. I wish my mother had not had to go through what she did, but I am so glad she’s okay and that I was in a position to be here with her.

Now, in the face of my mother’s temporary recovery, I’ve decided to end my gap year in France the way I began. Though I wanted to return to the school where I was set to teach, I never received any word about returning. So instead I’ll be helping out a family a little farther south, about two hours northwest of Toulouse. I’m excited to write about this adventure and more in the coming weeks.

I thought the greatest misfortunes I’d write about during my stay in France would be weight gain from eating too many croissants or getting lost trying to speak the language. I’ve encountered quite a few more trials and tribulations than that during this year. But I would be a very different person without this journey I’ve been on.

And isn’t this travel blog all about the journey?