The Neverending Grief

One of the "perks" of my job is if there is an old and confused client, I'm the one assigned to call them. 

A querulous message was left at my extension, by Elena. She is usually okay to talk to. She always asks about Ben. Her husband, who she cared for until his end, died a few years ago, leaving her on her own. She has no children, no other family.

I considered the clock, and figured that 10 a.m. should be a safe time to call her back—the elderly are usually up by then. 

When she picked up though (when the answering machine was already talking), it was clear the phone had woken her. Then the conversation went downhill. (I found out later she's on some serious medication.)

Suddenly, out of nowhere, she began to scream about Jack, the partner in the firm who had died young-ish (like five years ago). "I talked to his wife," she ranted, "he ate like a pig! He didn't take care of himself! Why didn't you do something!?" 

"I—I tried! We tried!" I spluttered, even though the question was not a fair one. "But he called my lunches 'rabbit food'! He didn't want to listen! He would stand by my desk and expound on the glories of medication! He ate out of the office! In the end, he made his own choices." 

She sounded so distraught on the other end of the line that I was wracking my brains what I could say to calm her down. 

"Look," I said, "no one ate healthier than my mother. No one. As soon as she heard a certain food was 'bad,' it was out of the house. I have a vague, distant childhood memory of store bought cookies in the pantry, but I never saw them again. Margarine? Gone. She ate lettuce every day—I'm not kidding. She did yoga. She walked. But she got a random, rare disease, and died. 

"See, I'm religious, and we believe that someone can do everything right, but if it's your time, it's your time."

She was quiet. 

She then found another topic to harangue about, and by the time I hung up a half hour later I had to lie down in the conference room to recover. 

After I managed to crawl back to my desk, I was thinking over what I said about Ma. 

Because Ma took such good care of herself, none of us had anything to blame. No one could think, "If only she didn't ______." "If only she would have ______." We could only think that her death was meant to be. 

But acceptance still doesn't deal with the hurt. It'll be four years soon since she died, and while the pain is not as bad, it's still there. 

My sister-in-law told me of a friend of hers whose mother died when she was a teenager. "My mother is here," she said, motioning to the spot next to her. 

Han doesn't seem to mind that I'm constantly quoting Ma. And constantly saying what she would have done or said about nearly every situation. It still bothers me that Han never got to know her well, when I know the two of them would have gotten along so swimmingly I probably would have been shoved out of the way. 

And then I know that there is no "what if"s. There is no picking and choosing the elements in our lives. What is, is. 

One minute, I'm at peace with the situation; another moment later, I grieve. 

It reminds me of the throw pillow Ma bought for the boys' room all those years ago: "If it's not one thing, it's your mother."