Shadows of the past....

Well, two days have passed since Christmas Day 2016, and even though there is still some partying to be done to ring in the New Year, it’s back to the old writing desk for this garbanzo. I have several projects to work on – a novel, a bunch of new book and movie reviews, and a short story set during World War II that I’m trying to develop. In addition, I need to think of topics for the Cerebral Palsy Guidance blog, for which I get paid to write as a contributor. So…yes, there’s a bunch of things on my writer’s to-do list.

Today, however, I want to talk about more personal issues that weigh heavily on my mind and heart.

You see, even though this Christmas season has been the happiest I’ve experienced in over 20 years, I have been haunted by thoughts about my late mother, Beatriz.

To be honest, I consciously try not to think about Mom too much. It hurts me a great deal when I do. I don’t like dwelling on the circumstances of her death, for one thing. The last five years of her life were hard and painful; she spent half a decade mostly confined in the downstairs bedroom of the condo we shared, robbed of her mobility and independence by a series of physical and mental illnesses that eventually took her life in the early morning hours of July 19, 2015.

And, for the most part, I can go for long stretches of time – some lasting as long as two weeks, maybe three – without conjuring up the sad memories of the not-so-distant past. Instead, I try to hang on to good remembrances of movies we watched together, places we visited, or pleasant conversations we had over the years.  

The other day, for instance, I was rummaging through my Blu-ray collection in search of something to watch at the end of a day at my work desk. Almost impulsively I took the Indiana Jones: The Complete Adventures box set from its niche on the shelf. I smiled wistfully at the box set – Raiders of the Lost Ark was the first movie I ever invited Mom to see in theaters.

And yesterday, as I was watching the 2004 documentary Empire of Dreams: The Making of the Star Wars Trilogy, I couldn’t stop thinking that Mom had given me the Star Wars Trilogy DVD set for my 41^st birthday. (She pre-ordered it for me on Amazon in March of 2004; I received the box set that September.)   

So, yeah. I try to focus on the good memories and not the nightmarish ordeal we both went through from June 2010 till July 2015.

And yet, there are moments when I find myself feeling her absence. Or feeling angry at the consequences of her death – namely, the bitter and long-standing quarrel between my abusive older half-sister and me. Or wishing – rather uselessly – that I’d done things differently – and better – when she was sick but not yet a shadow of her former vibrant self.

So, yes. Even though I’m in a happier place than I was at this time last year, sometimes the cold, long shadows of the past darken my mood, like a lunar eclipse blacks out the Sun.