One Woman's Writing Retreat: One Daughter's Journey

It is odd what one recalls about a traumatic event. I remember clouds of migrating blackbirds hovering over the hospital each sunset, the budding hibiscus planted near brick buildings, the cacophony of birds perched on utility wires, or swooping down into the parking lot, tail feathers spread out like jeweled fans. The smell of the ocean at my parents' sea cottage, and the taste of salt in my tears are all embedded in my thoughts to remind me of my mother's death.

It seemed even on our arrival to Harlingen,Texas, something ominous was about to happen. My mother and her husband had been planning to move back to Iowa, and had packed many of their things, when she fell ill, believing it to be a virus. I was on chat talking to co-workers, trying to take my mind off my mother's illness when I got the call from my sister to be ready in a few hours so we could arrive in Texas before Mother's surgery, a grueling 28 hours of non-stop driving, since the airports were flooded with students going on spring break.

It will be the anniversary of my mother's death at the end of this month. She died two weeks after being diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer. I am thankful she didn't suffer long, but I suppose the Easter cards I see in the stores remind me of the card my step-father JJ had written to her last Easter, and wanted to read over her hospital bed while she lay dying. He too fell ill last October, and spent six weeks at the University of Iowa hospital in and out of intensive care. We stood at his bedside as he died just as we had stood with him beside our mother eight months earlier. JJ was buried on Christmas Eve.

It is hard to let go of my parents and my step-father. They were my heroes, protectors, teachers, (sometimes my adversaries), but also always my friends.

There were so many parallels between the Spanish culture in south Texas and my father's death in Spain, that I also took comfort in the language, the history, the architecture of my surroundings, as if my dad was giving me some sign that he was watching over us.

Several weeks ago, I discovered my mother had willed her journals to me. I never knew she kept a record of her travels, and stayed up until 2 a.m. one Friday night reading her diary from her trip to Spain. I was 23 when it happened, and tried to escape my feelings. I'd drink too much, eat too often, or get involved in unhealthy relationships. He went away and never came back. At times it felt like abandonment. I missed him, and no one was to blame, so, I invented ways to blame myself. Sometimes I believed I'd been so rebellious as a teen I'd worn out his heart. I often had dreams about my father suddenly returning after so many years. He'd been lost, like in those old Hollywood comedies about the husband who is believed to be dead. He suddenly turns up on the doorstep after the wife remarries and no one knows what to do with him. Reading my mother's account of my father's death has finally provided me with closure. I've been able to turn my life around, realizing how short our lives are--how each moment is a gift. We need to come from a place of gratitude not waste time creating blame or longing.

I'm writing this as a journey, a work in progress, much like my grieving process. I learn as I go, and will share my feelings with you, so that if you too mourn, you will know that you do get on with your life, the pain slowly heals, though the sense of loss never goes away.

Years before Mother's death, I let my her read the manuscript for the first novel I'd ever written. If it never gets published, it will still have been worth the effort because I shared such a personal experience with her.

The best message anyone sent me around the time of the funeral came from a friend who had also recently lost her mother. She wrote, "I've decided it's better to have had good parents for a short while, than bad parents for a long while."

Catherine Tudor founded One Woman's Writing Retreat in 1996 in order to create a network for writers at all stages in their careers. She is the managing editor and webmaster of One Woman's Writing Retreat. Read more about her here.