More Loss, the Death of My Mother

Listening to Mom's belly

My mother took her life and was buried last week. It has not sunk in fully for any of us and I imagine it will take years to process. Mom had been struggling with depression for years and took on others' pain and burdens while never fully addressing her own emotions. When we spoke on the phone, she always asked questions about my life and redirected the conversation from her life. Although she would have laid down her own life to spare us the heartbreak of losing Isabella, she could not take that agony for us. My niece's birth so soon after Isabella's was a time of joy and renewal for most of the family. While my mother deeply loved her living granddaughter, she struggled to find joy in her birth and this created cognitive dissonance. Her family of origin was often dysfunctional and she was forced to act as a parent to her siblings from a very young age, which contributed to her difficulty acknowledging and dealing with emotions. The combination of her background, severe depression, and numerous losses over less than two years, changed her brain. All of us have struggled to process Isabella's death, but my mother said it broke her.

The entire family is reeling. The police chaplain my father spoke with shortly after he found my mother's body, helped put into words how we feel. Taking her own life was a tremendous shock, but not a surprise. We all knew she was in anguish. Growing up she promised us she would never commit suicide because she knew what it did to those left behind. In December, she and I had a conversation about whether she would ever kill herself and she reiterated her promise. As my dad has reminded me, she was a different person when she made that vow.

My mother had lost hope. Hope that she could recover, that her shattered pieces could be mended, that she would ever feel joy again. While her present hope was gone, she clung to eternal hope. She knew Jesus had conquered sin and death through his death and resurrection. She knew that she would be reunited in heaven with friends, family, and her granddaughter when Jesus returned or she died.

All of us ache. We mourn the loss over the last several years of who she used to be, we hurt for the pain she was in, we try to process what a death in this manner means for us individually and as a family, and we cry for the events she will never experience - more grandchildren, weddings, sunsets, holidays, walks.

As we navigate life without Isabella and my mother, we will continue to learn more about lament, sorrow, pain, and God's grace in a world that groans for his return. But oh, the loss.