Anne Lamott said missing someone who has died is much like a broken leg that doesn’t heal well. You simply learn to live with the limp. Since my mom’s death on January 28, I’ve been learning to do that. Part of me doesn’t feel quite right, though the healing is happening. I still ask myself how she could have gone from being fairly healthy in this photo taken in December to dying at the end of January. But I am so grateful that if it was her time, she left us before this virus crisis.
She would not have understood why I couldn’t visit, why she would be restricted to her room to avoid contact with other residents, why I couldn’t be there to hold her hand. But I was there.
She wanted her ashes to be mixed with Dad’s, so I have the urn in my home. I can walk by and pat it, saying hello to them and staying close. Once we bury them together in Rhode Island this summer in a cemetery near their beloved river, I will miss them. I may grieve all over again. But I am preparing myself for what it will mean to no longer have them in my life.
Sabra Ely Carter, David Giles Carter
