grrlTravels

Swimming through air

Sometimes the air seems thick, thick like honey, thick with dust, thick and close and wet. Sometimes the air is heavy, with aromas, or smog, or anticipation, or dread. Sometimes it takes energy to breathe, and you think to yourself, "In. Out. In. Out..." Sometimes it is an effort just to move through the air. It seems to push against you, to challenge your attempts to walk or make progress.

Somehow, we made it through the viewing, the funeral, and the internment. I had dreaded the internment, dreaded the finality of the casket, dreaded laying the flowers on my mother's coffin, dreaded walking away and leaving her there, alone in the cemetery. It was an effort to force my legs to push through the air, away from the gravesite, away from my mother.

Today I suppose that life is to go on. There are bills to pay, phone calls to make, people to thank, groceries to buy. There are fears to address, regrets to let go, losses to absorb. If only the air didn't push down with such force upon my head, making it hard to think, impossible to make decisions, difficult to breathe.