Life is a precarious balance of keeping pace with our responsibilities without going completely batty. We spend most of our days working, doing chores, and all that is required of us. Our everyday lives consist mainly of routines to which we have accustomed ourselves. The real trick is what happens when life throws us a monkey wrench.

I have to admit, I lost my balance a little while ago. Typically, I can juggle, tippy-toe, and tight rope quite well. I’d like to believe that I managed to keep a fairly composed life. I could attend to my duties while keeping time to do what I love. I felt myself to be a well-adjusted grownup. Then my mom was diagnosed with late stage cancer and given only a few months to live. We lost her in May. I’m thirty-five years old and I want my mommy. I’m an inch from throwing myself on the ground kicking and screaming.

So you can see where I’d start questioning myself. Where is that level-headed Keri that I’ve known so well? Who is this cranky creature left in her place?

I spent the last couple of weeks with Mom and I kept a fairly even keel through it all. Now that I’m back to my home I can’t seem to anchor myself, blowing hither and thither on the slightest of breezes. I cry at odd moments and fly into a rage with no provocation. I’m almost outraged that the sun continues to rise and set. Stupid, glowing ball. I have always considered myself to be just this side of homicidal but it seems I’m squeaking over to the other side. All the patience I’ve honed, all that kindness I’ve harnessed, all the tolerance I’ve developed – out the window, flying in the wind. I suppose when I really needed those characteristics they were at hand for me but now that I’ve seen her through I have to allow myself the space to hurt. I have to find my equilibrium minus a piece of my life.
So where is my balance? Well, in the big picture it’s between me and her. It’s how I carry on now having known her and had her in my life. It’s where I pick up now that she’s left off. It’s in accepting that all I did was out of love and now there’s nothing more I can do for her but remember and carry on with all she taught me and all the love she gave me. What she would want me to do now would be to take that monkey wrench and hurl it back as hard as I could. She was a funny kind, though.

Now I wait for the seasons to change, the days to pass and the pain to lessen. I cared for her, loved her and let her go. Between the two of us we managed. Between the two of us we did the best we could, we kept each other upright as long as we could.

Keri lives in Boyle Street. We give her our sincere condolences on the loss of her mother.