Kim Priore

The flowers have mostly died, the sympathy cards have slowed to a trickle, fruit baskets have stopped arriving, the phone has stopped ringing off the hook, my schedule has started to free up.  I don’t dread wakes, and funerals, and the accompanying activities the way some people do.  I’ve had enough experience with death to know that in a twisted way, that’s actually the fun part.  THIS is the part I dread.  The part when it’s time to ‘move on.’  The part when it gets quiet.  The part when I’m left alone with my thoughts and my memories and my regrets.

In time I know I will forget the bad stuff.  I know I’ll forget what it was like to see my Nana slow down, become forgetful, and lose the independence she so prized.  In the same way I know that the pain of letting her go will ease and I’ll stop randomly bursting into tears without warning.  But in the meantime I exist in this liminal space of knowing it’s time to move on, and not yet being able to.