MY MOTHER’S FUNERAL

My mother’s funeral was days of not sleeping, coupled with staying at my Dad’s with all my sisters and brothers. I was too terrified of my grief to close my eyes until after the end of the completely sad affair. John was still not that comfortable around my family—there were so many of us and we were used to a lot less law and order than John.  We were both a mess.

I was also having great difficulty at work. I could not concentrate. I was barely able to keep up with my course work for school let alone get ready for my comprehensive exams.  Life was one big anxiety laden day after another. 

What I later learned to call this mini psychosis was my death rattles. Each time someone close to me is dying, I develop a neurosis about work. I guess it allows me to bundle up my pain and project it onto the job, isolating it, much like the body walls off a bad infection in an abscess. It is an irrational place of pain and suffering just like grieving, except instead of grieving, I was completely distracted by job related issues, dreaded going to work and was continually terrorized by my generalized anxiety,