Visiting mom: 4 years later

Follow up from previous post...

I don’t visit my mom’s gravesite often. It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just that there were a lot of horrible events that surrounded my mom’s death and visiting her there brings all those memories back. I would rather not remember sometimes. But, when I asked Savannah what she wanted to do on our only day alone together, she said that she wanted to visit Nana. How could I say no? So, we headed to Cleveland, TN to find the private graveyard that resides behind a quaint, small church in what seems to be the middle of nowhere.


It was a very surreal moment as we pulled up. No one was around and hardly a car went by. It was a very peaceful, beautiful day. But it was a very eerie feeling as I got out of the car to walk to ‘visit’ my mom. It felt like a scene in a movie – you know when everything is in slow motion. I was barely holding it together. Just pulling into the parking lot elicited choking tears. It had been so long since I had last visited her grave (over 2 yrs, I think). I didn’t know what to expect. I hadn’t thought about it much and I guess that’s what happens when you’re suddenly faced w/ something you’re so used to stuffing down.

I was shaky and trying to hold back tears. I couldn’t talk b/c I knew that I’d break down and for some reason I felt like I needed to be strong for Savannah. I wanted so badly to be alone so I could fling myself across mom’s grave and cry uncontrollably. It’s rare when everything (all these deep, and somewhat lost emotions) comes to the surface… I so badly wanted to release it. I felt like a coke bottle that had been shaken up. I wanted to loosen the cap so everything could spill over. But I didn’t. I kept the lid on tight and would not remove my sunglasses, careful to not let Savannah see the tears in my eyes. I think it was hard for both of us… we were both scared of allowing ourselves to go there. And I think we were more scared of letting each other see that vulnerable side of each other.

Savannah and I are a lot alike in that respect… and we so happened to get that from mom. Mom had a really hard time being vulnerable and showing this weaker side of herself – it was a coping mechanism for her… and Savannah and I have learned to cope in that similar way. It’s safer to grieve alone, in privacy. No one can see the pain you’re feeling from the immense wound you’re hiding.


The weight of grief and pain was crushing as Savannah and I stood there in silence at the foot of mom’s grave. I know she felt it. I could hear it in her voice when she did speak. I ask myself now, ‘Why in the world did I not just grab her and let ourselves cry? She needed to just as much as I did. Why was I so scared?’ It would have been so good for us if we had. Not only good for us to cry about mom and release all that pain we had been holding in, but even more so – good for us to allow someone else to see our pain. Especially someone who understood. But, I wasn’t strong enough to do that. What Savannah and I ended up doing the whole time we were there was looking at all the other headstones and talking about the lives of those people. We, yet again, avoided the very thing our hearts had been longing for and needing. And I let us.

I feel like such a horrible example for Savannah. I’m teaching her, as my mother taught me, to stuff everything deep down where no one else can see – and sometimes you can even fool yourself into believing that it’s not there. But mom had tried to back track w/ me when I was older… she’d plea w/ me, “Honey, please don’t stuff everything down like I did for all those years. It will only hurt you more.” Mom recognized it and wanted to help me not be like her. But there I was w/ Savannah and I just didn’t have the strength to ‘go there’. Savannah needed someone safe to cry w/, someone to give her permission to cry. I wish I could have been able to be the one.