No Escaping Death
A rather morbid title for a blog post, I know. But this one’s personal, even more so than usual. Why? Because my mother will never read this blog post or any other again. She’ll never write another gushing, confidence-boosting comment of praise on one of my short stories, nor will she ever read my second novel, or my third, or fourth, or beyond.
The second one is tough, especially because I completed the manuscript in April. But I wanted to get my beta readers through it and get it as polished as possible before giving it to her. I like to have my husband read my novels first and her read them last.
Funny thing, too, the last time she and I went to dinner together, I told her I thought I was finally ready to pass it off to her. But I wanted to put it online for her in her own hidden password-protected area and I just hadn’t gotten around to it. Just one of those things. I didn’t think there was any hurry. Now, it’s a huge regret.
There’s a reason they say not to save expensive wine for special occasions. You just never know.
She was displeased with me for waiting to publish, too. She told me I needed to hurry up and get my novels published because she wanted to be alive to see her daughter “become a famous author.” Oh, to have a mother’s bias. She was truly my biggest fan.
It’s been a few weeks now though and I’ve been trying to get myself in order, and trying to get back to writing my third novel. I’m behind due to the emotional roller coaster I was on throughout her time in the ICU and I can’t write, can’t get into my character’s heads and feel their emotions, when I’m overwhelmed with my own.
But I’ve finally started writing again, just this past week, and have managed a whopping 11,000 words. I wanted to call her to tell her of the great progress I’ve been making, but of course I can’t. No more calls. No more dinners. No more Christmases or vacations together. No more karaoke, which was one of her favorite things. I’ll never sing with my singing angel again - not that I can sing. She was the singer. At least I have quite a few recordings of her songs.
I also have her stuff - all of it. My house is now filled from floor to ceiling with her entire apartment - furniture and boxes everywhere. We can barely walk around, and I suspect it will take months to get through it. Thank God for my husband. He’s handled so much of it because, for me, it’s hard. Everything is a trigger. And with all her stuff here, my house even smells like her now.
But time heals all wounds, right? So, I’ll probably bury myself in my writing. I have to if I have any hope of completing my third novel by the end of this year, and she would want me to do that. I know she would. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll feel less of a void by then.
