The Unbelief

The hardest thing to handle is the unbelief. It simply can't be real. This. Can. Not. Be. Real.

This thought invades my brain: "It hurts so bad. I'm going to call Mom...." And then I am forced to say to myself, "No, Stupid, you can't call her. That is WHY you are feeling this way." Suddenly the realization, anew and fresh, hits me and the pain surges like it did the first day.

When I was told the horrifying news, I kept saying, "No, you're lying to me. You're lying to me." It took me several minutes to believe it. I remember thinking, if I can just keep saying this, if I can just keep from admitting it, then it won't be true. I could deny it into non-existence. When I finally realized that it wasn't some cruel joke, I collapsed on the floor. Two coworkers came to my side, thank God, or I guess I'd have still been lying there when the kids came teeming down the hall from lunch.

I don't know why I didn't think it could be real; I guess there are some people in your life that you think are immortal, that they will always be there. Your mom probably tops that list. Unfortunately, the truth, no matter how hateful, how painful, how unthinkable, is still the truth; but how loathe we are to say yes to such a terrible reality. It is too much for our temporal perspective. If your experience is like mine, even though you admit the horrific truth, it still startles you from time to time, and you deny, deny, deny. Several times a day you are forced to come to terms with a truth whose implausibility, whose complete inconceivability towers over you, overwhelms you. And yet...it is.

A teenage friend who lost his dad four years ago put it into words most eloquently: you dream about them, then you wake up and remember they are dead, and the dream out of which you've just stepped feels more real than the wakeful truth.

She really is dead, isn't she?