Elegy for Mom
My sister said I should post this. I wrote it right after Mom died. She suffered from mental illness for most of my life, and passed away from complications due to Huntington’s disease.
Mom–
You were my idol
You were a voodoo queen
An earth goddess
A diva
A madwoman
A sophisticate
A saint
Always with a touch of the divine
Though everything you said was unreal
You never lied
You were fragile
And strong
And so much a part of me.
I used to envy the kids who had normal moms
Even the adults who complained about their aging parents
But these days I know better.
You taught me how to wear my crazy well
You were a fast friend
And a devoted parent through the last moment of your life
Often you were
So much more than human.
I battle myself not to be like you
I push myself to be more like you
You were a dark enigma
Yet transparent as light
Gentle yet terrifying
When you lived I couldn’t handle the pain of your existence
Now that you’ve died I find the absence hard to bear.
I once thought I took more care of you than you did of me
But today I understand what you sacrificed to protect your children.
Your laugh echoes in my empty heart
Your spirit derails me still
Fresh Hell 
A powerful, emotionally complex poem. The grief comes through. And I love complexity. It’s truer to life. Thanks for sharing.
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Thank you Paul! And thank you for the feedback ^_^
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Wow, so raw and exposed. Very powerful.
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Thank you, bottomlesscoffee. I definitely felt raw when I wrote it…!
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Awesome.
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I’m so glad you posted this.
I battle myself not to be like you
I push myself to be more like you
You were a dark enigma
Yet transparent as light
Gentle yet terrifying
I love the duality and raw honesty of those lines – and of the whole poem.
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Mom was a really strange and wonderful person, full of opposites
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She sounds fascinating – probably easier to appreciate now than when she was with you.
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We always got along. Spending time with her was both wonderful (she said the most fantastic things, and had startlingly creative insights) and excruciating (watching her degenerate, watching her get eaten alive by her demons). Even when she was around I appreciated her, because I understood that I could lose her at any time.
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It must be horrible to watch someone you love slowly sinking away. My mother went to sleep one night, and didn’t wake up. She was found with a smile on her face. It was good to know she didn’t suffer, but I found it hard to reconcile to the fact that she couldn’t hear me when I said goodbye.
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Oh wow, she got the ideal death that everyone dreams of getting.
Yeah, there’s a trade-off from the shock of a sudden death, to being able to say goodbye. I wouldn’t mind hanging on for a couple of days to say goodbye, but when my time comes, I don’t want it to take twenty years…
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I’d like to die from an overdose of laughter, with my family around me. I’d warn them, then make my death the funniest thing they’ve ever seen, so they’d forget to grieve 🙂
Seriously, I wish I could prevent the grief. I was inconsolable for a long time after my mum died. You know how that feels.
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I told my friends that they must slingshot my urn over a cliff, and someone has to do the Goofy scream for me: “Yaaaa-hoo-hoo-ee!”
Hopefully this will help mitigate the pain and they will be unable to take my funeral seriously. It’s the kindest thing I can do for them…
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I like that. Sadly, we both know that neither of our ideas would work.
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I can take comfort in the knowledge that they will at least wear outrageous clothing to the funeral, and there will be a drunken after party.
Hopefully I’m the last to go… wait. That sounds awful.
Maybe we should just leave it up to them and not worry about it; our best efforts might end up sabotaging their grieving process. We can only hope that they won’t be so torn up as we imagine 😉
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How hard to be like her and yet not be like her! Sometimes a whole lifetime spent in resolving this conflict. I so love this, just as I loved the previous one. ❤️
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