No, my late mum isn't still 'with me'

Am I alone in this?

People say a lot of things when someone you love has died, much of it nonsense.

I try to be polite and smile, especially when it comes from a fellow griever, because I know they mean well.

But the idea that what has worked for you will work for me seems flawed, considering the fact that we all come from such different backgrounds and belief systems.

I also understand that I’m more sensitive and quicker to anger than I’ve ever been, that it’s possible people are being entirely reasonable and I’m a bit of a bitch.

But of all the things that wind me up, make me grind my teeth, fake a smile and mutter noncommittal noises, the biggest one is any suggestion that I should write to, speak to, or otherwise try to communicate with my late mum.

I hate the insistence that she’s still around, in some form.

I don’t have many religious or spiritual beliefs, I’m open to the idea that most of what happens in this universe is beyond my understanding.

But I’m pretty convinced that there’s nothing after death.

I think that’s what gives life meaning, that it doesn’t last forever. I think that’s what makes consciousness work: a brain being provided with oxygen and nutrients and whatever else brains need but don’t get once you’re dead.

I actually find it worse to think of death as a pause in the physical body while our disembodied consciousnesses are forced to go on jabbering forever, never free of thoughts.

That doesn’t sound like heaven. It sounds like hell.

That’s what my mum believed too, even though she went to see a famous psychic’s stage show a year after her own mother’s death. (In fact, I think it convinced her once and for all that there was no way to communicate with my grandma anymore).

Maybe you have to believe in some concept of life after death in order to experience contact, in which case I’m stuck because I would love to feel my mum’s presence if she was willing to show herself.

When you’ve seen your loved one’s dead body, though, it’s very clear that they’ve gone and won’t come back.

The challenge of (my) grief is to come to terms with that, a thing that shouldn’t be happening and doesn’t feel real and should be illegal, actually.

I might be a hypocrite because sometimes, I do talk to my mum, like when I wear her rainbow scrunchie, accidentally drop something she owned or see a photo of us together. But I don’t get anything back, don’t hear or see or sense a response.

In fact, talking to her only makes the chasm between her presence and her absence clearer. Makes my loss more evident. She’s not here. That’s the problem.

Because I’m a writer, I assumed that I would want to write to her, that it would be healing. I even saved the last notebook she bought me for that purpose, one with brown and white rabbits on the cover.

But I found myself blocked for months.

Then, on Christmas Day, isolated and sad, I opened the book and started to write, telling her how much I missed her and how awful it was without her, how most days I was barely hanging on.

I hoped that over time, I’d write a series of messages charting my path from devastated to hopeful, would look back and be able to see how I’d started to live again. I thought I’d somehow feel less alone.

Instead, I had a meltdown and ended up hysterical and hyperventilating on my bed, feeling like I might throw up and never stop.

Over a decade ago, I went to Florida on an ill-fated trip for a faddy health treatment that I hoped would transform my stamina and energy levels. It didn't, although it was nice to walk on the beach.

I felt so anxious and alone and so many things went wrong that I found myself writing postcards to my mum for comfort, even though I knew she wouldn’t get them until I returned.

The difference between then and Christmas Day was that even though she didn’t get my messages imminently, I knew she would get them eventually.

It was dramatically different knowing that she (the best editor I’ve ever had) couldn’t read my words and never would again.

I’d love to feel like my bond with my mum continues now, that I could still experience the love between us instead of its lack, could close my eyes and hear her voice.

I would adore it if I could see signs that remind me of her, as if she’s sending me messages from beyond the grave cremation box, like I’m a character in an indie rom-com. But it hasn’t happened yet and I’m not convinced it will.

I’m similarly incapable of making myself believe that her spirit or soul or consciousness is floating in the earth’s atmosphere and not one coincidence has occurred to make me feel otherwise.

Some well-meaning soul suggested I could tune into what she would have said whenever I want advice or input.

That might be true for someone more predictable, but my mum was always surprising me, like three years ago, when, having spent the ‘90s saying that Oasis was a poor facsimile of The Beatles, she suddenly declared her love for the band, Liam in particular, and began talking fondly about his love of cats and talent for the maracas.

Of course, I wonder if it’s too early and I’ll feel her presence later.

But even though I’ve always had a vivid imagination. I’ve never once felt my maternal grandma’s or granddad’s presence and they’ve been dead for 20 years and 16 years respectively.

As heartbreaking as that is, maybe it’s also OK. Maybe it’s normal. It’s possible it’s not even a bad thing.

I miss my mum more than I could ever express, more than I can bear. But over the last six months, I’ve started to adjust to her not being here, to the presence of her absence and how that will continue for the rest of my days.

The fact that I’m still here and have kept breathing despite not one smidge of encouragement from the other side is my biggest achievement and I hope always will be (if I’m called upon to do anything harder, I’ll have be lobotomised first).

To me, it’s a tribute to her importance that it’s been so tough without her and if I thought I could still see or hear or feel her, I wouldn’t have had the chance to confront the scope of my loss.

Part of acknowledging how much she means to me is knowing that, with the possible exception of hallucinogens that I’m not mentally stable enough to experiment with, there’s nothing I could to do to summon or channel or reanimate her.

She doesn’t “live on” but I do get constant reminders that she’s gone, from Oasis’ ticket-cancelling controversy to her favourite animal conservation charities popping up on Facebook to any mention of Elvis Presley, Dean Martin or Doris Day and a thousand other pangs every week.

As painful as those moments are, they’re also wonderful because they mean I miss her. They mean I love her. They mean she was here.

Thank goodness.

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Speaking of my lovely mum’s editing skills, the last piece of mine that she helped me with was just published by brilliant new lit mag In Short and is partly a tribute to her and to Dolly Parton (plus it’s under 500 words, which is always a bonus).