From The Mud Pit

There is now on Netflix a documentary called The Truth and Tragedy of Moriah Wilson. A very young girl was killed by another young girl over a boy they both liked.

They interview the mother of the deceased, Moriah, and at some point, she says, “Grief is like a mud pit. You can go around it and around it, trying to avoid getting in the mud, but the only way to get to the other side is through it.”

I am realizing now that I am finally in the mud.

It’s been six months since my mom left her body, and I am finally going through it.

I had been sad, I had cried and missed her, but I was busy. I found many ways to stay busy, not intentionally, but maybe as a way to protect myself from myself, as a way to delay the pain.

I am not sure if it’s the books I have been reading or the fact that I have more time now, but the way I thought I was “going through it” has changed completely.

I thought grieving my mom wasn’t even that hard, that I was doing great despite missing her so much. The acupuncturist told me early on that it takes about a year or a year and a half. I thought I was already halfway through and feeling reasonably good.

But lately, something woke up in my body, in my mind, that is taking all the air I need to breathe. I can’t seem to focus or find motivation to do anything, but I’m also unable to relax and do nothing.

I am somehow restless and paralyzed at the same time.

My arms hurt and feel heavy. My chest hurts—not in a scary way, but as if a big bubble of sadness is taking up all the space, pressing against my lungs and all my organs.

I am crying now. A lot. And it’s not fulfilling as it was before. I was dedicating some time here and there to crying and then resuming my everyday tasks, feeling relieved. Now crying just leads to more crying, to feeling weaker, heavier.

Joan Didion says in her book The Year of Magical Thinking that crying and mourning death used to be a public affair, that people would gather in the house of the deceased and take care of their loved ones so they could cry.

She says that now crying happens in private, that there is so much focus on “feeling good” that it is not fashionable to cry in front of others and burden them with our sorrows.

I have this so deeply engraved in my mind that I even feel guilty for crying in front of my dog, since she can read my body language and know when I am suffering, which in turn would make her suffer.