Dying inside, doing good.

My Mother died in 2005, it's been twenty years and that pain hasn't gone away, I know it never will. My Father died last year and I think it was only the pain of losing my Mom that gave me the strength to deal with losing my Dad.

After Mom died, I took a few small things that she owned, one of them was an umbrella. It was one of those smaller ones that you could toss in a car, which is exactly what I did. It became another reminder of Mom, even when I wasn't home. I'll admit to the world I was a huge 'Momma's Boy' and it wasn't just because her words saved me more times than I can count, her love never faltered, even when I didn't deserve any love. She fed me when I had nothing, and I promised to make it all right when I could.

I'm proud to say that I did.

She finally stopped accepting the money I kept giving her with each paycheck, and when I felt that we were at least close to being on common ground when it came to the money she had spent on me, we re-started what I would assume is a 'normal' relationship. I have never known someone that showed me the kind of unconditional love my Mom showed me. In a way, it still hurts to know that, and in another way, I'm so thankful for it.

When she died, a huge part of me did as well, and it took months to convince myself not to join her.

I know that's messed up, I know it's not healthy, and I can give you plenty of reasons why I had lost any hope for the future, but none of that matters. I'll tell you what DID matter though.

One afternoon, driving home from a job that I hated, it was pouring rain. I had stopped at a traffic light, and for whatever reason I glanced over and saw an elderly lady, walking quickly along a fence. She was getting soaked, had no umbrella and without thinking, I turned my car, and drove in front of her, grabbed the umbrella that Mom owned, and hopped out of the car, opened the umbrella and ran over to her, and gave it to her.

She didn't want to take it, but she also didn't want to keep getting rained on.

I insisted she take it. And so she did, with a pained smile on her face she thanked me several times, and I smiled (something I had forgotten how to do.) and told her it was my pleasure.

I didn't make it back to my car before the flood of tears began, and continued for the rest of the ride home, and have started again as I write this.

I remember feeling good about what I had done, and I knew that if there is something waiting for us after we die, then Mom would have been proud, but man, it just left my emotions as raw as they'd ever been.

That simple, trivial act of decency reminded me that my parents had raised me in a way that even at that moment, consumed by loss, and heartache, I could still manage to be 'human'. In a way I can't explain, it made the loss I felt seem even larger.

I'm not writing this post to get sympathy, I'm not writing it to prove I'm a good guy. I'm writing it to say that even doing something right, something generous, all comes from what we were taught as little kids, and those little kids we all once were, have grown into adults that we want to think are good people.

For me, I'm happy enough to simply not think I'm 'bad', 'good' would be a stretch.

I know that trivial act probably doesn't mean a lot, but to me, it does. It was almost the first thing I did after Mom had died that demonstrated that she raised a troubled son who could somehow navigate a life-changing loss, and still be a human being.

It made me love her even more, and at the same time, miss her more than before.

Our hearts and minds sometimes quarrel, I know I have regular battles within, I don't have any scientific explanations, or understandings of those silent battles, but I know they exist. All of these years later, if it's raining outside I think of that day.

I wonder, when I'm gone, will my Daughter ever have a similar experience. It's a strange question, because on one hand, I want her to remember me fondly, and understand that while I have never been perfect, my love for her, is probably exactly like the love my Mom had for me. Endless, bottomless. But I know how that love, and then it's sudden end nearly ended me. The alternative is that if she simply accepts the loss, and moves on with her life as seamlessly as possible, it would be easier for me to accept, I'll never want her to suffer, grieve, or feel the kind of emptiness I felt, and still feel.

But then, what kind of Father would I have to have been for her to simply shrug it off and get on with life?