The Rehearsal of death

I fear getting up every morning knowing that I won't be able to call my mom. That I won't be able to buy little silly things for her that would make her smile. Things with kitties, or butterflies or funny books or cutting boards. I dread that I won't know what step to take or if I'm making the right decision without talking to her, listening to her, crying to her. I fear that my heart will not be able to pull itself back into the lines and shape of a heart; that it will permantley be askew and jagged, hard to breathe and hard to beat. I fear that I've not only lost my mother and best friend, but that I've lost my final pieces with her as well. I've felt like I've been lost for a long time and my mama always shone a light for me. Now there's nothing but darkness and nothing but pain. It's too quiet, it's too loud. It's too bright to stay awake but too dark to sleep. Nothing is the same, all colours are subdue and look like they've been washed out. I haven't laughed, really laughed or smiled without my heart hurting at the movement. I don't want to see a gravestone with her name on it, because I know I will feel the weight of the earth on me also. I don't want to have to see a stone to know she was here, I want her breath, I want her voice, I want her. I have no need of air or daylight and I only hold on because I'm told to. Because I'm told it'll will get easier. Because it'll get better. Because time will heal the pain. I don't want it too. I don't want the pain to go away, I don't want it to get better because if it gets better than have I forgotten the reason for the pain in the first place? Have I forgotten the memories and smells and tastes and sounds that were her all my life? I don't want to achieve success, or have children, or do any of the things we always talked about because it won't matter if she is not beside me. It won't matter if she doesn't see it with me. How can you rejoice a death that is not your own? How can you rehearse for all the deaths you will experience in "life" such as pets, and seasons, and friendships, and careers, and dreams, and aspirations, and love, and desire and loved ones and then not be at all prepare when it comes? How can you prepare your heart for the heartbreak, train yourself to be strong, to normalize it, to accept it, to allow it to take it's place and then on the final night not remember a thing? You've rehearsed for so long! Even using yourself to rehearse with. You've sat in the audience memorizing the movement of death, the softness and the destruction, the balance and insanity, the beauty and the horrifying, the lull and the blast. You know Death stands by as babies are born and people fall in love; you know it's there at dinner tables, at basketball games, on family vacations, in board meetings. You know it's waiting patiently and quietly, letting you spend your time on things that are important, or maybe not that important in the end. It doesn't judge you or test you, it doesn't mock you or play with your mind, because after all, that's Life's job. No, Death simply rests, while you worrying your life away, spinning a blanket of memories, failures, successes, love, and unknowns. And when you least expect it, although you should have known, it stands in front of you and you run into it to be wrapped up and taken away. And we are always so surprised. So shocked that someone has be blanketed by Death. So dazed that Death would come for them out of all people. We just don't understand that Death is also spinning our blankets and when he's done we too will be gone. We don't understand that Death is necessary, that without Death, how would we live? We would have no urgency, no surge for living without the presence of Death. For how can an oak tree ever grow if there were no acorns to be buried?