Don't Be a Picklebump

Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors).

I don’t remember much about that day. I remember being on the phone with a customer and a co-worker trying to resolve an issue. I remember the drone of the phone as it announced a second call. I remember being surprised to see my sister’s name pop up on the display. And I remember thinking that I better take it. Normally I don’t interrupt customer calls, but I needed to take this one.

I remember my sister’s voice breaking as she told me the news, “Mom is gone.”

I remember the creamy white walls and the lights as I pushed back from my desk and saying “No” over and over again as I started to cry. I remember people coming to my cube. And I remember the utter agony of my heart breaking. Things were a jumble.

I remember telling my co-worker to get on the line and let the others know that I wouldn’t be back on the call. Another co-worker saying she’d take me home. My soon-to-be-old boss and my new boss coming over to take me to the glass-walled cube of the new boss’s office. I remember calling R and telling him about Mom and getting my stuff together and just trying to hold on until I got home.

In one moment I was totally aware of how alive I was and at the same time I was aware that my mother was gone.

My whole world this year has been shaped by this one thing. Mom’s death wasn’t unexpected, but it wasn’t supposed to happen for another couple of years based on what she told me last year at this time. I thought we had that long.