Requiem for my Mother and Michael's Grandma

my last  picture of mom I have  I  see the grief from losing dad and still smile as she is wearing what see always called blind gypsy chic jammies

In two days, my mother will have been gone for a year. She passed away suddenly in her sleep, 89 days after we lost my father. Ironically our family had always prepared ourselves that if mom went first, dad was soon to follow. My dad, the wear your heart on your sleeve guy, made no bones he could not function without her. My mistake was my mom was more aloof but deep in her love but when he died, I really saw who she lived for. After my dad passed, mom lived with us for about 2 weeks while my brother got their place in California ready. I would hear her at night, after seeing her worn but still standing, talking to him .It was the most heartbreaking thing I ever heard and the most intimate pieces of their relationship, I was ever privy too. Her life was going on but not with him and she could not make sense of it. It was a frantic place for her trying to be strong but her heart just laid our flat for grief and God. It never in my wildest dreams occurred to me that 6 months later, I would be having the same conversations of loss, on my son’s bed willing him beyond hope to walk through the door. Even more devastating, my pleas to mom and dad, especially mom to help me live through this, were also conversations with ghosts and no answers. Most of the time , I am glad they are all together in the next life but sometimes so angry they left me to what at times feels like the wolves. I will not celebrate my parents 60th anniversary, dad getting a cancer free diagnosis, my son growing up, getting married. I will never be a mother or a grandmother to a child on earth. And the one person who knows me for my whole life, the good, the bad, the fucked up, the awesome, is now a conversation to nowhere in the still of the night. I lost my child and I want my mom to help me survive this.

Ironically though they did not spend a lot of time together, Mike and my mom were tight. Tight in that way that I was always like hmmm where is the pod with my mom? My mom did not cook, bake or be the “bestie” of her daughter. But she loved in a very straightforward way. She always said what was on her mind and she was always there for me, even when others gave up. Her love was whole and in some ways hurt me, she was so afraid of losing me that she did cave to various doctors who put me on large amounts of meds that we now know are bad for teens, damaged my liver and wreaked havoc on me. She taught me to keep it all a secret from folks, so they would not think badly of me. But hiding that secret, those meds, those effects, how they actually made me more insane than they helped, blew up my world, wiped out part of memories of childhood. We talked about it as I got older and it killed her knowing that drug after drug was causing me more and more violent reactions, but she trusted the doctors who were in fact wrong. I never blamed her because my mother with no medical background, she was trying to keep me safe. It was the wrong path but as I learned being Michael’s mom, sometimes you mess up out of love. In my mid 20’s she was terrified when I finally said no to the meds and terrified that she would lose me. She became more devastated when nothing happened, I became more level, more cognizant, and more Rachel than I had been in a decade.  She felt she had failed me and I spent years letting her know I was ok now and that’s all the mattered, When she came to Eugene and met with a top psychiatric doctor and me, she cried to learn that misdiagnosis back in my teen years was not uncommon and I showed no symptoms of bipolar disorder. The rapid cycling bipolar with stints of psychosis were in fact not organic to my brain chemistry  but the side effects of being on Lithium, Depakote, Trazadone, Paxil, Prozac and so many others when my body did not need them. They in fact caused the moods they feared and instead of stepping back the answer was always up the dosage. It took a long time for her to forgive herself, I was never mad at her. She did what moms bullied by doctors do, reacted to the threat and tried to keep her kid alive. I loved her more for helping me save myself. And I knew she always had my back.

So this very matter of fact, speak your mind kind of mom, became this gooey gooey mess with my son. I think she really saw his wounds deep in his heart and something about him brought our huggy grandma. My son in some ways was an open book, full of love. He sucked at lying or deception and while he thought at times he was getting over, he fooled very few. This led to a lot of very uncomfortable conversations at time about what was going on in his life, what he was doing. What he was not. It did make us stronger because we could get through those tough things to love. However my son was a child who grew up in no safety, no permanent love. He was as a small child abused and abandoned in horrific ways and as a teen left to rot in a system. He did not become bitter or a victim, yet there was a part of Michael that would always be his, his wounded little boy was never going to share that again. We talked about it once, ending in tears for both of us. I never felt cheated, I knew this was safety piece for him. But I always believed he would live long enough to figure out how to unlock it.

My mother came the closest to unlocking that piece even for a minute. Mike loved grandma’s no filter and no bs approach to life. My mother was always also the honey for gay men, they flocked to her mainly because she would care less about who they slept with and I think had some Bette Davis charm. But at times she would simply disarm him. In the most gentle voice ever, she would come up behind him and just say “Michael I just need to hug you, Love you so much , you are so much .” and she would just hold him and stroke his hair. My son’s eyes always gave him away. When my mom did that to him, every time I saw the eyes of a toddler. For those who have toddlers you know those eyes, full of wonder and joy in the moment. She for a minute could get into kiddos no fly zone. I loved her for that and that my mother just believed in finding happiness, sometimes she sacrificed it in her own life so she wanted it for me. If she ever had any qualms about her lesbian daughter and now trans gendered partner adopting a 16 year old gay male, she never shared it with us. Her only request was could Ty have his name Tim instead easier for her, of course. She said as a family we made sense and in her heart Michael was always supposed to be all of ours. She would tell me, I only have had him for 3 years but Rachel I love that child so much, my heart just melts around him. Mike was planning in February with her to go to California and spend just a weekend them together. He was saving money to take her to the beach.

I have seen Mike cry a few times in our life but the sobs when grandma passed, he was incoherent for about 2 hours. When I went in to say goodbye to mom at the funeral home, my child became a man and he held his mom up while I fell apart holding my mom for one last time. 6 months later when I fell apart holding my child in the mortuary, I had a distinct feeling they were both there physically keeping me standing and willing me to breathe.

My mom was a damn good mom, not perfect but mine. The things she did with me that mattered: open door communication even if it was sucks, unconditional love, unconditional support: I kept those pieces and used them to help my son blossom and find himself. The things that did not work I used as growth when I became a mom. I never took for granted what an “expert “told us about our son. We learned together what he needed, what worked and fought to find options and not make decisions out of fear.

I talk about missing Michael a lot and it’s not for lack of missing mom and dad. However I look at trauma from a new school of therapy which is essence illumination. Studies show that emotional trauma in the body really lasts for about 90 seconds. If you can allow that pain to pass through you, it helps you heal. When we fear the pain it gets trapped in our bodies and we replay it in detriment to ourselves. I do a lot of daily 90 second breakdowns about Michael, sometimes hourly. The release when the heartbreak and rage comes keeps me standing, keeps me functioning, keeps me keeping his love in me, and keeps me alive. Combining all 3 losses is something that is so physically painful that in working that out I have lost my voice for few hours or have dry heaved blood. My parents and child may now be celestial beings, but I am still human and the combined loss at this time does not flow throw but tears holes like bullet piercing armor. Like Mike, I am always ware of mom gone. No weekly phone calls, so 6 am I just want to vent to you calls. No hearing “how are you my love’ No mom. My son shares a lot in common with my mom, meet them once and you never forget them. I love you mom, I miss you mom and if you ever had any misgiving just like I was the mom Michael needed, you were the mom created for me. I love you and miss you so much, take care of kiddo for me , ok .