It’s been a year. Things feel normal now. Those moments of realization come still, but it’s now, “Mom’s dead. Oh.” Hard to believe, but I’m tethered to Earth again. It’s not dissimilar to those mornings I’d wake up in Kiel and realize I was thousands of miles away from home. Hard to believe, yes, but nothing revolutionary. The worst is over, though I’d being lying if I said there hasn’t been a wave building the past few weeks, spikes in anxiety and homesickness, old memories coming back to life. 

Mom rescuing me from St. Andrews pre-school. The smell of the cleaning agent. The cheaply tiled floor. The relief.

It’s hard to believe how much of grieving is self-centered. How much of Mom I always carried with me, how she was always a part of my reality. “I can’t wait to think tell Mom about this,” I thought multiple times…