My Oma died today.
(Oma, of course, being the German word for Grandmother: in this instance my Mom's Mom.)
It wasn't a surprise at all- she'd had a stroke back in May, was hospitalized/in rehab for about six weeks, and we all knew that basically the goal was to get her well enough to come home to die.
And she did. So at least there's that.
I got the call while I was at the playground. Nathan and I had taken TLG and my best friend's son (whom we were babysitting this weekend) to run off some energy, and thank all the gods Nathan was literally standing right next to me when I got the call, able to put his arm around me and be a solid presence grounding me.
It was my mom, and her voice when she said hello- I knew. And I cracked a joke because that's how we roll, and we both laughed and cried and then I had to lock that shit down because I had two little boys I had just told I was taking for ice cream.
I'm proud of my ability to compartmentalize- it is extremely useful is emergency situations. But the problem is that it's a lot harder to unlock that emotional box than it is to lock it in the first place.
Even after we were back to our typical Family Unit of Three, with Nathan occupying TLG downstairs so that I could have some Alone Time upstairs... nothing. Numbness. And I feel like I can't talk about it with TLG until I can express honest emotion. Right now I'm too detached, too clinical. I a not a healthy model of grief.
Hence I'm now working on this blog entry, forcing myself to face and process things, and listening to sad music for good measure. Sometimes you just have to artificially jump start the emotions before they'll flow properly. Priming a pump, or something. I don't know. I don't have it in me to make elegant metaphors, at the moment.
And just like that, it's working.
