Always Be Coming Home

It has been 16 months since I wrote this original Substack post, with full intentions of having a good 2024.

In reality, 2024 started in a deep depression, where I was clinging to trying anything and everything to keep the life I knew moving forward. I recall mentioning a darkness and a sadness hanging around in my previous substack, welcoming 2024. The year continued on with the job of caring and caretaking for my mother, protecting her in the ways I could with the resources and ability I have. It turned into a job that asked so much of me, and took my time and much of my heart.

I would think – is this what loving someone means? Is my tenacity in caring for her, not taking no for an answer, and fighting for her care, her dignity, and for peace and comfort in what I knew was the end of her life, the ultimate, final act of love? All while in my own grief, my own complicated relationship with being her daughter, and being a woman in the world; aging, living, and loving as I could.

Looking back, it surprises even me how much I had to do, the challenges I faced, the nights I would work until the wee hours of the morning, taking calls, sending texts, organizing paperwork, making to-do lists for her care, and being the communication center for the entire family. Yet, in the moment, there is nothing more than what is happening right in front of me. I go into work mode. I go into handling business mode. Things simply have to be done, and I was the one to do them.

And I do them well. I carry heavy loads well. I do not take pride in this skillset, but I do feel thankful that I am able to hold myself at the same time. I am grateful I have resources; I know how to take the best care of myself even when things are hard, when things are heavy. So much of life is not about fighting what is, but simply being with it. How can we hold all feelings, all realities, at the same time? How can we be kind to ourselves when we fail at handling things well? How can we allow ourselves to fall apart sometimes? To have bad days? To lean into social networks, our friendships, and love (no matter what it looks like)?

I spent the last two years telling people my mother is dying. I said it not for shock but to be with the reality that was mine, and reality as a whole. Death is a part of life. She was dying. I was grieving. It was my reality, and to fight what is, is a recipe for even more pain.

As I reflect on the start of 2024, and my attempts at this substack, it was perhaps the heaviest in grief I was in. I spent the end of 2023 with a broken heart, believing my mother was going to die rapidly, and grappling with my own age as life continued onwards. Last year started, and even though she was still here in body, in need, and in feeling, so much of her was gone. I slept and slept and slept those months. Gone were the days of caring to wake up and be productive. I’d spend entire days clinging to a positive thought, a meditation, or sitting in the park weeping. I’d close my eyes and feel the wind on my face. I’d walk without a map or a direction, just anything to keep moving forward. A long season of holding on.

She continued to slip away from me, from us, from her own life. The pain of watching someone wither away is a practice in sitting with one’s own helplessness, and the grief that is already present around what is already lost, what is being lost, and what you will ultimately lose….while still holding onto the reality of a life still being here.

By mid-2024, I’d isolated enough to tend to my heart and finish my manuscript for what will be a book I’m so eager to share with you all. I’d planned time with friends and family, to whom I owe so much. Their love and presence keep me here. To know love and care like this is what life is actually about.

Summer is healing with an energy only sun can provide. My mother was still dying. But somehow I became easier on my heavy heart. It simply was there. My tasks for her care grew in intensity and complication in ways I will not even highlight as they are just things I had to navigate and are not worth belaboring now. They are done.

My mother died on January 4^th of this year, after the longest December of touch-and-go wellness, uncertainty, and admittedly more suffering. I’d like to think she was comfortable those final weeks.

I said my goodbye to her on a Friday evening, my brother sitting beside her. I felt her spirit cross over on Saturday, and the next six to eight weeks were a blur as anyone who has planned a memorial service and been the most important person/contact person / first in command can attest to.

I say all this not only to share where I’ve been (and why this substack has been collecting dust,) but to acknowledge the very human experience of grief, and the even more overlooked experience of complex grief, care taking, and the many roles we assume in our lives and in the lives of those around us. The invisible labor of women spans time, place, and age.

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So often, we do not see the intensity or depth of what we live through until we are on the other side. We look back and can finally acknowledge just how much was on, or just how bad situations were in retrospect. To survive is to not fully know while we are in it.

Recently, I saw a lecture Dr. Becky asked what resilience feels like. She mentioned that being resilient doesn’t feel resilient while we are in it. She went on to mention that the space between knowing and not knowing is the space of learning, and the “learning space” has one feeling associated with it: frustration.

Building frustration tolerance is how we weather seasons of resilience.

“People think resilience and success is getting to ‘knowing’ as soon as possible.” Resilience and success come from how long we can tolerate being in the in-between.

The last few years had to play out in the way they did. I simply had to get comfortable with being uncomfortable, alongside a timeline that was undetermined in all ways except for the reality being that it would all end with my mother’s death.

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When I say, always be coming home, I mention it often as a way to remind myself I am always returning to myself. No matter how far I drift, or how long I’m away, my efforts are to always be coming home.

I’ve returned to more literature and more poetry, and as much nature as I can touch. Art can save us, if you let it. In these moments, I find myself again. I get back into my body. I find hands to hold and people who give real hugs. I listen for my friend’s voices and laughter more. I focus on nourishing myself, from the inside and the outside, with new information and more tender approaches that are enriched with the reality of my current age, my current goals, and my current needs. In some ways, I’m meeting a new version of myself, rich with new wisdom and maturity, and a deeper understanding of love.

The last four years have confirmed much of what I felt, but one of the many lessons is that we have to take the time to make the time. It won’t often be convenient, but much of what is important is not.

People work hard on all the wrong things. We hustle. We grind. We pull all-nighters for education or (gasp) jobs. We pour money into our personal upkeep or material items to satisfy our egos, but do not show up for our friends’ special events. We spend time scrolling, but say we hate being on our phones when it comes to a phone call, or leaving actual voice memos, and checking in.

Last year I abstained
this year I devour

without guilt
which is also an art

― Margaret Atwood
(from You are Happy, 1974)

To love is an art. Thus, to caretake is an art, but a discipline one must have the capacity to engage in.

This year of 2025 felt like it began in May for me. Mourning season had started to lift, spring was in the air, and now summer is upon us as we close this month.

For those who have extended their care during all of this, I feel all the love. It is deeply appreciated. The Women’s Community has been a sweet refuge to share.

We all get a turn with grief, and most of us will also get a turn with life not going according to how we planned.

May we all always be taking care of each other, and always be coming home.