Two funerals and (0) weddings

I woke in the dark, disoriented and let the darkness momentarily blind and engulf me. It was dinner time and I could hear dishes clanging and chairs pulling downstairs but I lay still. I allowed the realization to set in and contemplated the overwhelming hollowness and the intertwined new and old pain searing in my heart. I miss her. I miss my mum. I miss her violently.

Grandma's funeral was grand. Many came to pay their last respects and as with all funerals, it was heart wrenching. I was prepared to let Grandma go, I had dealt with the blow of mortality in its full force few years ago but what I was not prepared for was how much it brought me back to her.

I felt the all too familiar stab in my heart when I saw mum's name in bracket on the obituary notice which denotes the person as deceased. I was mum's representative to last pull the drape over grandma's body before the closing of the casket and my tears poured. There is nothing more beautiful than the mother-daughter bond in this world. I love my mum and she loved her mum and Grandma loved me and we are all daughters of love in this fleeting circle of life.

I closed my eyes and saw them. Mum and grandma. I saw every wrinkle and twinkle and I heard their interacting voices, every dent of intonation, every nuance of expression and I imagined their voices fading away like an echo. I clawed, I thrashed wildly and I screamed inside but its futile like cupping water with your hand, you hold on to it for as long as you can before it inevitably seeps through the lines and crevices of your grasp. I could not hold it in anymore. Will I ever stop missing them?

My aunt spoke of how their hearts were bleeding at mum's funeral. She was wrong about mine. My heart was hemorrhaging.  Every breath I took shred my lungs like paper and a big part of me died that day when they closed mum's casket. The sealing of the casket is a most traumatizing experience for those left behind. Every nail knocked in, with each sound louder than life sealing into it a sense of finality, of separation beyond what we can not even begin to comprehend. We mortals will never be spared from the merciless swings of the ax of life.

Mum, I miss you miss you miss you. I wish you knew how much I love you. I never brought myself to say those three words to you and when I finally did, you have drifted halfway. I was too late or was I? I really need you to know that I love you and that being your daughter is the biggest and proudest achievement of my life. Rest in peace, mum. Rest in peace, popo.

From your forever loving daughter and granddaughter.