The Wild and Wonderful Ways of Grief

Something weird happened to me about a month ago. I had a dream about Freddie Mercury. Now to stop my groaning friends that might be reading this blog and have tired of my recent glut of all things Freddie, I am not going to do into a long examination of my love and affection for the Mercurial One. I just want to show how the most odd things can bring you through the wilds of grief. Not odd in itself that I should have a dream about him. I have always found him fascinating, egnimatic, and just plain wonderful. But the intimacy of the dream and the timing were what took me by surpise.

  The dream, as I came to find out many days later, was less about him and more about me. As most people know Freddie died of aids in 1991. A disease with degnerative qualities, that causes other diseases, it made me think long and hard again about the loss of my Mom as we round the corner to year 4 since she died. Not so much that she DID die, but how she died. It was quite a horrible way to go, and I don't wish it on anyone. But walking the road down the death of Queen's frontman, examining his life and his lack of connection to people, his sometimes ebullient joy at just living, and his shaking the hand of finality has made me examine my own walk I made with my Mom.

Mom loved life. Always did. She lived life with such joy, trying to wring every little bit of it out for herself. A sickly child who became a sick young adult, she never expected to make old bones. So she never did anything half way. From pushing me to try all sorts of things, to decorating her house for Christmas bigger and better than anyone else, to making sure my wedding was Better Homes and Gardens worthy, Karen K. Kirby-Jones sucked the marrow out of life in a way that I wish I could sometimes.

  So, I should not have found it surprising that she made it through Cancer, Heart Disease, and a slew of brushes with death, only to die of one of the most rare degenerative diseases out there. 90% of people I meet have never heard of the disease she died of. That was "so" Mom. The doctors couldn't even agree on what she had and all of them said she was probably suffering from two diseases. Really? Only my Mom could be that different and special. Not a great way to be special, but it exhibited a point that I am making here. Walking down the road to your final reward isn't always pretty or easy. Sometimes people die gently in their sleep. Some, struggle with heaving horrible gasping breaths. But in the end, we all die. Each of us has a decision to make. How will we live on the road to eternity?

   Don't get me wrong, death is horrible and I'm not making light of it here. But what I am saying is that while we are living, we need to remember that life is fleeting and death even more monumentous than birth. We can die badly or we can die well. Even though the last days of my Mom's life were tragic and hard, she fought the good fight--and for that, I will always remember those days as the hardest but the most meaningful of my own life up to this point. My Mom would have agreed with Freddie. My smile may be fading, my make-up may be flaking, but my smile still stays on. The show must go on, my dears. Make it a good one.