Keeping the dead alive

After I wrote my last post- about the fact that if my mother had a grave she had to be dead- I added to the end of it that I would probably forget this, that I would think she was alive again, that I would hold on to the belief that I would see her again.
I wondered about this- why I seemed to come to these huge realizations in which I accepted that my mother was dead but then found myself having that same realization again- almost as if I had never accepted it in the first place. It was like I totally accepted it at the time and then had to accept it all over again.
"When am I actually going to accept this?" I thought. "When will this be fully true for me?" because it sure felt true each time I had to face it, painfully true. Why did it keep coming up for me when I seemed to fully feel it when it happened?

A couple of days later, I saw my mom's picture on my mantel. I keep it there for a reason- mostly to keep her image in my mind because she is, kind of, what I'm working on. Having her image there keeps her in my head so that whatever comes up for me, comes up for me, whenever it does- not when I feel ready or want to- just whenever and as it comes up.
When I saw her picture, I smiled. She looked happy and I thought of her with affection and love. I pictured her happy with me sitting on her lap- feeling great about having this kid and having a happy life.

And then I got angry.
"She's alive again!" I thought. "Yesterday I accepted that she was dead. Yesterday I accepted that she had a grave and that she wasn't at her own funeral and that I was."
"This is why she keeps coming back," I explained to myself. "You're keeping her alive by having her photo there- by remembering her- by thinking of her. You have to accept it- she's dead."

But I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to accept that she was dead. I wanted her to be the happy person in the photograph, the one who loved me, the one I was with.
At the same time I knew that I wasn't supposed to deny the feelings I had for her, or the fact that I saw her as a person. I knew those feelings were true and I knew I had been working hard to allow them to come up.

"What am I supposed to do?" I thought. "How can I accept her death and her love and our existence all at the same time? I know I'm not supposed to trade one for the other but keeping her alive seems to keep me from accepting her death."

And so I turned away. I turned away from her photograph and told myself that she was dead- that that was just a photograph and I was a 43 year old woman, in her bedroom, at night, trying to process all of this.

I glanced at the photo again, as I was climbing in to bed. It seemed a little farther away but it also seemed that I was on that path again- that path to try to find my mother somewhere, believing that she still exists, hoping I can see her again.