My Grief Has A New Name

My grief has a new name and its name is wedding planning.

Way back when in July, I said yes before the fireworks. We had talked about it for so long — or what felt like so, so, so long — that I’d already started to daydream about our wedding. I’d already imagined the guests, the location and the colors. It was fun and exciting, if not a little bit silly.

Now, just a few months later, we have a venue, a caterer, a photographer and a cakemaker. It is real.

It is so real that I keep bumping into my old ball and chain, my grief. It’s how I know this is really happening. It’s not just that friends and family are booking hotel rooms and airline tickets. It’s that I can’t quite shake the overwhelming awareness that my mother won’t be there. Nor will my grandparents given to me by blood. They’ve all died. There isn’t one left before my family tree started new branches. I miss my grandparents and I wish they could be there. I’m pondering taking the dress that my grandmother wore to my father’s second wedding and using it to make bowties for the guys or maybe just wrap around the bouquets. It’s hot pink. I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around that color even though I love the idea of my grandmother being present on that day. But, it’s not so hard to imagine this day without my grandparents. It’s much harder to imagine this day without my mother.

She wasn’t there when I graduated high school. She didn’t get to see me earn my master’s degree or preach from the pulpit for the very first time. I’ve missed her each and every time. I’ve shed a tear for each family member that whispered in my ear, “your mother would be so proud of you.” But, I never thought that I would miss her as much as when it came time to plan my wedding.

It’s been twenty-eight years since my mother died, but my brain can’t quite process that she won’t go with me to look at dresses or plan brunches or whatever the hell brides do with their mothers. I feel pulled back into the cycles of grief where I’m not quite at anger but surely claiming some of my heart in denial. I can’t believe my mother isn’t here. Hello denial.

It hit me last night while I was running. Because I’m aware of this void and I know that I have do something to create a space for my mother on my wedding day. There are a lot of cheesy ways to do this that I am loathe to include on my wedding day. Running last night, I got to thinking about the details of making this thing I am imagining come to life. There are some things that I need to gather and prepare. I was making that list in my head as I ran until my mind flashed to the actual moment of what it would look like on my wedding day. I imagined the photographers clicking away as this happened until I realized I was sobbing. Fresh, hot tears streaked down my cheeks.

I wish that I could “get over it” as I’ve been advised so many times, but I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know how to detach from this loss because in removing my heart from that pain, it means losing my mom. I don’t want to lose her. I don’t want to give up on loving her which means that my grief has so many different names. It appears each and every time something big and wonderful happens, and the feeling never, ever goes away: I just want to tell my mom about it.