Now where did I leave that corpse..?

A few hours after my last post, I heard that my Mother had died. We've been waiting a long time for this, so long that we had drifted into that state where you idly wonder if your relative really is the person who has cracked eternal life.

I've realised that I don't think I ever really grieved losing her to the dementia - what point do you pick to do that? Which day is the right day to begin to mourn the loss of a person's interior workings? - so now I think I'm grieving that first, and the funeral will perhaps trigger more feelings around death itself.

You know how when someone dies you say, "Oh, she would loved that! /She'd have been thrilled!" etc... well, with Mum I keep thinking, "No she wouldn't, she couldn't even talk!" and then I have to go back a stage and think, "But the person she used to be would have..."

I had a bad relationship with my Mother for many years, and have had counselling to deal with lots of issues as I wanted to clear things up before she died and left me with even more of them! And I made my peace with it all - with her - finally. Quite a while ago, in fact. There are still pockets of damage in me which spring from those injured parts of my psyche, but everyone has those. I no longer blamed her for any of it, I'd forgiven her for it, I'd acknowledged my part in it all (okay, some of it appears to have been merely Being Born, but as I grew up I took my part in the drama) AND I'd acknowledged that perhaps she shouldn't have treated me as she did at times.

She was a damaged person herself, and it has been lovely to hear so many loving memories of her from people who knew her when she was about the age I am now. Others remember her as loving, nurturing, supportive, exhuberant, intellectual, fun, joyful and bringing colour and love to her world.

I'm glad that I've got far enough in my own brain-clearing exercise to be able to be thankful for those lovely memories that other people have, to let go of my own not-so-good ones, and to think of her as someone who brought a lot of love, joy and fun to the world.

And the fact that her body went AWOL for a few hours only adds to the fun. (In fact, it was there all the time, we just didn't know where!) She was always looking for things, losing keys, exclaiming, "Dash! Where've I put..[X, Y, Z] ?"

She'd have loved it. The woman people remember. She'd have loved it.

RIP Mum, I love you. x