Life - In Loving Memory of Martina Aviles

In Loving Memory of Martina Aviles

Welcome to the January episode. As, many of you might know, I have slowed down the podcast over the holidays. I thought I would get a head start and work on creating new episodes and possibly have more episodes during the month. Well, that didn't happen. On January 3rd I lost my mother and I dedicate this episode to her. She had had dementia for several years but after several falls which lead to brain bleeds, which she bounced back from and we thought it was getting better. On January 2nd I saw my mother at the nursing home via FaceTime and she was being her fisty self and my sister was by her side. My mother had a habit as we were children to always kiss us on the forehead. My sister kissed her on the forehead several times and mom had this big smile on her face. I said "look at her smile", it was beautiful. The feeling that I received from her smile was as if she was stating: "It's okay to go now. I know love." I couldn't sleep that night, but I also accepted that if she wanted to leave us, it was okay. I didn't want her to suffer. Those words are hard to say, but I felt I was being selfish because knowing her personality, she didn't want to live the way she was living. She passed the following morning. To state I miss her is an understatement. I don't know how to feel. There's an emptiness and numbness.

I flew to Chicago for the wake and the funeral. It was surreal. She looked as if she was sleeping in the coffin. I spoke at the wake and told a funny story about my mom and the next day at the funeral I read the poem I wrote about her called "Warm" because that's how she was. The poem which I will read at the end of this podcast states how she kissed me on the forehead. This poem is several years old. Synchronicity is strange, isn't it?

I am mourning. The APA Dictionary of Psychology states "mourning is the process of feeling or expressing grief following the death of a loved one, or the period during which this occurs. It typically involves apathy and dejection, loss of interest in the outside world, and   in activity and initiative. Bereavement and grief are similar in definition but different. Wikipedia states the following: Grief is the response to loss, particularly to the loss of someone or some living thing that has died, to which a bond or affection was formed. Although conventionally focused on the emotional response to loss, grief also has physical, cognitive, behavioral, social, cultural, spiritual, and philosophical dimensions. While the terms are often used interchangeably, bereavement refers to the state of loss, while grief is the reaction to that loss."

Death of a Parent - For an adult

As you get older, many expect it to be easy to lose a parent because you have had many years and it's expected. It's not easy. Especially when the parent is loving and caring. Wikipedia: "When an adult child loses a parent in later adulthood, it is considered to be timely and to be a normative life course event. This allows the adult children to feel a permitted level of grief. However, research shows that the death of a parent in an adult's midlife is not a normative event by any measure, but is a major life transition causing an evaluation of one's own life or mortality. Others may shut out friends and family in processing the loss of someone with whom they have had the longest relationship."

 

I've been studying grief and what to expect and work through during this difficult time. I've enrolled in grief consulting, taking a meditation course on grief, and learning to be kind to myself during this process. I know I will dip in and out of grief. As mentioned to me, it never goes away, but it can subside. There was a card made from the funeral home in honor of my mom. My mom was religious, and we picked the following poem to match her beliefs and how we felt about her.

Our Mother's love, had no strings attached.

It was unconditional,