In Memory of April 30th to July 14th in the World After Mom

There’s the final medical procedure on the last Monday of April and the looming appointment for my GRE in early May. There’s also the end of the school year fast approaching and the plane tickets for far off Albuquerque pinned to the fridge door to remind me that June means freedom. Everything moves quickly but in slow motion and my writing is almost as fractured as my thoughts. I find myself with lots of snippets but nothing with enough substance for a proper blog post. It is a state of incoherence that I experience every year at this time.

 Every year except last year.

It’s been almost a year to the day since the phone call that changed everything. Almost a year to the day since I abandoned the last weeks of school like they meant nothing and drove home to be with her. Almost a year to the day since my world collapsed inward and became about her and only her. Almost a year to the day since the Summer of Mom.

I have a goal this summer: to spend as little time alone as possible. A month with my brother, then a month with my father. They work, obviously, so I will have the days to myself, but the evenings will be filled with the presence of family. I am not giving myself so much as a single sunset to just stare at the ceiling in an empty apartment and pine for the voice I will never hear again.

I’ve always somewhat loved the happy chaos at the end of the school year. Last year I had to give it up to do the most important and difficult thing I had ever done. This year I am beyond grateful that it has returned to me. I am overbooked, foolishly optimistic, and blissfully frantic. So though I know my silence may look disconcerting it is not altogether unhappy. As the one year anniversaries pass—that of her diagnosis and, later this summer, of her passing—I am not opposed to being too preoccupied to think on it much.