It Doesn't Get Better, It Gets Easier.

It doesn’t get better, it gets easier. I remember so clearly someone saying this to my mother in 1982, two months after my father died. It was a neighbor who I figured was well-versed on the subject; she had lost her own husband suddenly, as suddenly as we lost my father, six years earlier. My mother was sobbing in her arms, and she was holding my mother and saying, “it’s okay, Marion. It doesn’t get better, but it gets easier.” I thought those were incredibly wise words then, and I still do. It doesn’t get better, but it does get easier.

Today, the 28th day of November, 2005, corresponding to the 26th day of Cheshvan on the Jewish calendar, is my mother’s yahrzeit, the anniversary of her death. Two years today since I stood by her bedside at Englewood Hospital and cried as I watched the doctors and nurses disconnect her life support. Two years today since I spent the next eight hours by her bedside, watching and waiting while she took her final breaths. Two years today since I took the nurse’s stethoscope and listened to my mother’s heartbeat in the final few minutes of her life. Two years today, and I still think about reaching for my cell phone before I remember that I can’t call her; two years today, and I still dream about her at night more often than not. Two years today, and all I know is that dreams are a good way of holding on to someone you so desperately never wanted to have to let go of.

It does get easier.

Have a good day, keep a good thought, and thanks to all of you for being there for me in so many important ways.