and my face is more my mothers

but it’s been six years since she saw me last

when i was a kid i thought when i got older

my face would stretch out long into an oval

and i’d look more like the ladies in magazines

you were larger than life from middle school

on legs long and desperate to run

i five foot nothing telling everyone i couldn’t

drink caffeine at fifteen dare i risk ruining my

growth spurt because i was a late bloomer

but i would become my mother

Two weeks into the program having only exchanged a few words here and there Grace went out of her way to get a group together for vegan burgers (me the only vegan) from Hank Burger for my 20th birthday. She made us all stop at the Franprix to grab a bottle of prosecco and we picnicked at Trocadero near the Eiffel Tower. My sweet quadruple Aquarius told me about how she hated birthdays and that they always made her sad, so she understood the importance of trying to show up for people and making them feel special, even when she barely knew or owed them anything.

Fast forward to the first evening I arrived in Utah, with the group coming in chunks from Thursday through Saturday. In the Park City restaurant our 24 year old server, a seasonal worker from Bulgaria marveled over the fact that we all lived in different states and that quite a few of us had never met before (Utah ID and alcohol laws being what they are) and gushed over the fact that we all met up to go ski and celebrate our friend. I was excited to try something new, Grace got into skiing last year and has really enjoyed it. I went snowboarding a few time as a kid but stopped in elementary school and blocked out most of the experience. The idea of getting into a winter hobby and outdoor activity sounded nice though.

The next day I had my ski lesson, it went really well and despite falling during the lesson I felt confident and strong. There was the initial shock of the impact and realizing that I don’t need to scramble or rush to get up or collect myself, a lesson and reminder I can use in my daily life. Our 75 year old instructor called me a speed-demon (I was bad at slowing down it was not a choice) and told us there were two types of skiers, those who had fallen and those who hadn’t fallen yet. I think a good chunk of people who have met me in my adult life might assume that I would consider myself athletic because of running and I guess I don’t really, or maybe I have imposter syndrome. I stopped doing sports in middle school and worked an after school job in high school, and for the first three years of college I didn’t workout. I started running at the end of my junior year to get closer with my mom, and to work towards my eventual goal of running a marathon with her while she was still alive. I don’t think I’m particularly good at running, my speed fluctuates and I don’t have great form nor do I pay attention to a lot of technical things. I’m not coordinated, I wouldn’t say I’m particularly graceful, actually I’m pretty heavy footed in general, I drag my feet, I bump into things, and I walk into people I’m walking with, though I’m working on it I swear.

Basically I’m saying, I’m not naturally physically talented and with some things I give up more easily than not. I don’t consider myself crafty or super dextrous with my hands- what my dad would call “intelligence of the hand” something my brothers and I have endlessly howled over and quoted in games of Mario Party or Beyblade battles. I am maybe going to try and dip my toe into the world of knitting or crochet this year but again, no intelligence of the hand, and a lack of patience. I think the thing I do have is my will power or tenacity if I can say that without sounding like an asshole. My entire chart outside of my mutable Virgo sun is cardinal with an Aries moon, Cancer venus/mars, and Libra rising and mercury. I guess in my way of rationalizing who I am I have momentum and repetition, the drive to say okay and try again or the grit to muster through. It’s carried me through 5 marathons, 2 since my mom died and every menial frustration I encounter in life if I’m being honest. I do think I’m emotionally stunted in the way that many of us are since COVID-19 and exacerbated by my mom dying early on in the pandemic a year before my frontal lobe fully developed. But a large portion of what drove me before all of that and what gave me momentum was wanting my mom to see me accomplish things.

I convinced myself it would hurt less when she died, if she saw me do x or finish y. I’m lucky that my mom lived until a month before I turned 24, I’m unlucky that I have to live the rest of my life without her. My mom got to see me graduate high school, college, move to Paris to teach English, run my first marathon alongside her and my dad, run another marathon with my best friend in Paris, move to New York to begin grad school and run the marathon with her in New York for Breast Cancer Research Foundation. I ended up delaying my grad school completion, the summer semester of research in Paris suspended during COVID-19 after we went on spring break and never went back, while at the same time my mom lost the ability to see out of her right eye, then she couldn’t walk anymore. I was supposed to be interviewing other North African students I had met in Paris about their relationship to identity, instead I was rubbing my mom’s feet when they started to turn purple. A few days before I was supposed to take my MA exam she passed away. When I wrote to the director of our small program that I would be delaying things, that my mom had passed away he sent me a two sentence reply that someone had let him know and his condolences. I would trade my degree if it meant I got to rub my mom’s feet one more time, if I had another opportunity to ease her pain.

I went back to Paris the summer after when the borders reopened, I did my research there, it was important to me to conduct the interviews in person. I didn't go to my grad school graduation after she died, I didn’t care, the world was still on fire, and it didn’t matter to me anymore. I guess I felt that the more she saw, the more I would be able to rely on those memories on the days when I’m aching more. On the days or in the moments when it feels like the future without her feels pointless and stretches out endlessly in front of me. In the first months after she passed I used to run through the days that I had lived at or been at home in a state of flux. The weeks between camp, the weekend she spent in Chicago where I slept in her hotel bed with her, the six weeks I was home over DePaul’s weird winter break, the week I flew home to run the black cat 10 miler with her in Salem, I kept scrounging around for time to try and hold onto or make sense of in the face of the loss.

I love running because it’s always challenging for me, you can always come back to it, or build your mileage back up, there are set backs that are out of your control, it feels like an endless pursuit or meditation, and I know for my mother she relied on it heavily as a meditation. I realized though standing on wobbly legs that I had not been truly new to something in a long time. Running is always challenging yes, but it’s not foreign to my body in the way that skiing was. I know the mechanics of what I’m doing when I run, I try not to think too hard about what I look like because that’s none of my business but I know what to expect. On long skis with heavy clunky boots and questionable knees I did not.

A lot of us are really disconnected from our emotions, it’s hard not to be right now. The world is still on fire, my nervous system feels fried, and my mom is still dead. It feels like everyone is trending towards individualism when we need collectivity and community even more than ever. We numb out and plug in to connect or disconnect or reconnect and are stuck in endless cycles that we’re all trying to get out of or be better about. I know, I’m trying to. I have my own list of things I would like to do this year and habits I’d like to break and corporations I’d like to divorce my money from.

I don’t get to feel a lot of my grief or rage or sadness because it feels like I can’t, like my survival is tied to my ability to get through an endless cycle of obligations and work (it is though womp) because we live in a capitalistic country without a social safety net. I get to grieve in bursts and spurts or during a movie, book, or song that really taps into my pain. I don’t often to get to tap into what it feels like to be scared, or panicked, or feeling something so new and foreign to me or my body. I don’t think a lot of us do in our day to day lives.

We ended up on a green hill late in the day that very quickly brought forth a lot of visceral panic and fear. It was fairly long and pretty steep for a green (the sweet mountain patrol guy named Aaron told me that it was almost like a blue even but I think he was just trying make me feel better). I fell quite a bit and got up, but eventually I got to a point where the end was not in sight and I was shaking uncontrollably and hyperventilating, unable to put my skis back on. This was especially humbling as 5 year olds zipped past me, hands in the air pole-less letting out high pitched yips and woohoos. Fear feels so embarrassing, and it was hard to feel out of control and unable to calm down. My sweet friend and her sweet friend (now my sweet friend too!!) were very patient waiting for me and went down with me. Even when a girl came to a showy hockey stop in front of us and asked if we were okay, we let her know we were, and instead of moving on like a normal person she let out a snarky “bit off more than you could chew?” In the moment I was honestly too stunned to say anything and she skied off into the distance. We laughed about it and I thanked my friends for their patience promising that I would try again and not push myself too far until I built more confidence and fundamentals.

A few days later and the rest of the group had assembled, it was my second and final day to ski and we went up as a group to what seemed like a fairly easy and wide green run. The skis immediately felt foreign to me all over again, and my mind started to race as we lined up when I tried to remember what my legs should be feeling and how I should press a certain way to stop or turn. We got up the hill and Grace offered to ski slowly with me but within seconds of stepping off I was trembling and panicked all over again. I started incoherently and defensively babbling about how I couldn’t do it, how it was impossible, all of the things that were wrong with my body, past lingering injuries, weaknesses, equipment issues, emotional stresses, before finally wailing that I missed my mom. The entire time Grace stood there patiently with me, and told me that she knew I was capable, and that she knew how scary the panic and the fear were but that we could go slow and take it step by step together. She ignored my blubbering, she didn’t take it personally, and she was patient with me. We made it down the mountain where her childhood friend Molly also comforted and cheered me on.

I was able to collect myself, and understand that I would be okay. We went back up as a group of three and they skied with me down the mountain carving wide turns, my confidence increasing moment by moment, even when I stumbled or had a near fall. I ended up wanting to go down a few more times after lunch and surprised myself by asking for one more run before we went down the gondola to enjoy an après-ski beer.

I know I’ll feel that fear again when I go skiing in a month with a different group of pals, but I also know that I can feel the fear and do it anyways. I felt incredibly embarrassed and vulnerable about how transparently scared shitless I had been, and a part of me cringes at the blubbering baby that I was in front of relative strangers, friends, and actual strangers. Mostly though I’m glad I tried something new, can feel things so deeply and strongly, have the privilege and ability to try new things, and loved ones in my life who will support and cheer me on. I can try new things, not just to check something off, or feel I’ve accomplished something that counts toward the part of my life that exists as the before my mom died. I can try new things even when she isn’t here to watch or guide me.

Happy birthday to my sweet friend Grace, I love you, and I appreciate your friendship deeply. I hope 30 brings so many good things your way my friend.

Art by Bjenny Montero

It’s well after midnight, my alarm is set for 7:30 AM, the latest I can get up and still be on time for work. I’m staring at the silver sliver of night light seeping through the crack of the bathroom door. I should be asleep, and I can feel myself getting worked up about the fact that I should be asleep, but I can’t fall asleep because my mom is dead, and I kind of have to pee a little bit.

I’m frustrated because peeing is keeping me up. I have OCD, and one of my more annoying compulsions is peeing before bed until I feel just right, or for lack of a better word, empty. It’s hard to describe the feeling of giving in to a compulsion without relying on cliches. Physically, it’s like scratching any itch; mentally, it’s the pursuit of just right, just right, always in the pursuit of just right. Of course, giving in to these compulsions doesn’t actually do anything beyond a few moments of relief; the unsettled feeling doesn’t go away, no matter how many times you pursue it or submit to it. It’s exhausting trying to keep tabs on every worry or fear in my mind and the peripheral details. To attempt to rake through every interaction and everything I’ve said or done, internally, akin to holding water. My OCD became a lot worse after my mom passed away, 4 months into a global pandemic, which isn’t surprising. That, combined with 11 years of feeling like my mom might pass away at any moment, anticipatory grief, guilt at living out of state and then abroad, along with the increase in social and state surveillance, created the perfect storm to be completely destabilized and knocked flat on my ass.

The symptoms or quirks that were relatively dormant or manageable before her passing became all-consuming. For most of my adolescence and adult life, I struggled with anxiety and depression, but I considered myself to be high-functioning; I didn’t struggle showing up to class or work, and I never felt like I needed medication. In 2023, I hit a breaking point after moving, quitting a job, and starting a new role. For the first time since my mom’s passing, the routine and new normal that I had adapted to were gone. It got to a point where I was scared to take the train by myself for 15 minutes because of intrusive thoughts. I started medication that March and am thankful every single day that I did. OCD has become a lot more manageable, and while I still have intrusive thoughts, I finally feel like I can release them. I don’t get trapped in the same cycles of rumination, mentally checking, and turning things over in my mind again and again.

I would spare everyone the details, but I know it’s not actually all that uncommon as far as compulsions go. To set the scene: I have to fall asleep in a specific way, I like to crack my back in a child’s pose, and then I crack my back on both sides lying down before turning over on to my right side with one hand under my pillow and another pillow tucked in between my knees and a mouthguard which is new for me because otherwise I will continue to grind my teeth into oblivion.

While peeing before bed is a part of my normal nighttime routine, if I’m more anxious for any reason, big or small, something happening at work, a fight with a friend or family member, an unexpected big cost, a bad time of year, a newly unlocked looming health concern, travel, all could trigger a cycle. And even though I don’t have the OCD where I need to wash my hands x amount of times in a row, I do wash my hands a lot by nature of having OCD, and also by virtue of being a Virgo. If I take the subway somewhere and need to pee upon arrival, I wash my hands, then pee, then rewash my hands. So you can imagine they need some lotion. And this flurry of peeing until just right sets off a whole routine of hand washing and moisturizing that my towel and moisture barrier struggle to keep up with.

So on nights like this, even when I’m mentally ready to fall asleep, I feel tense, and then I feel the urge to pee. I know I don’t need to pee, because I just did, but I also do have to pee because I can feel it! I can feel that I need to. Suppressing the physical compulsion leaves me feeling rigid, stuck, taut with anxiety, whereas ripping off my sheets in frustration and springing out of bed to walk the three feet to my bathroom, plunking down and desperately trying to wring out the 4 drops of pee I knew were in there, finally offers some feeling of release, an exhale. It becomes an endless cycle of feeling just a bit of pressure and oh well, what if, and not being able to fall asleep unless I trust that my bladder is empty, because this is the thing that my brain has chosen to fixate on, and this is the thing that it feels it can control.

Except I don’t really feel like I can trust my mind or body a lot of the time. My mom was diagnosed with cancer four separate times. In 2009, it was Stage III breast cancer, and then she was in remission. In 2014, it was Stage III thyroid cancer, and then she was in remission. In 2015, it was Stage IV breast cancer, metastatic, spread to her hips and bones, and there was no getting better. In 2016, it was Stage IV thyroid cancer, metastatic. How can I trust my brain or body when I saw my mother’s own body betray her over and over again? How can I trust I won’t get sick, or I won’t get sick again, when I saw my worst nightmare realized four separate times? The first time I secretly recorded my mom’s voice, because I was scared I would stop hearing it soon, I was 12 years old. The interaction I recorded? I was telling her I was going “into town” with my friends and that I loved her. I wanted to make sure I had an audio recording of her saying she loved me back.

Before my mom died, when I felt the unease of anticipatory grief grip me at night, I could soothe myself in knowing that she was still there, still alive, still okay. Now, when I feel the unease at night, I know it’s still my body signalling to me that something is wrong; my mom is dead. Every night when I go to bed, I must do so knowing that I am getting farther and farther away from the last time we spoke. Every morning I wake up is a new day that I must face without you. So my body and brain look, they search for the mythical “it,” what is wrong and fixable. The thing that’s wrong that I can find, and still get that release. So I lay there. I sip water, check my phone just one last time, and go pee and wash my hands. The cycle continues.

It’s not always this bad, but it always feels this bad when it is. I know it’s worse right now because I miss you. I will always miss you. Your birthday is tomorrow, and my bad brain and bladder are keeping me up at night because I miss you.

Art by Jayde Perkin for Untangle Grief and The Griefcase

At the beginning of quarantine, my mom sent me a few puzzles to do, it was a nice way to occupy my hands that wasn’t Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley and I liked FaceTiming her to chat about my progress. This past winter, I found solace in the old puzzles she had sent me and adopted a sort of afternoon or weekend ritual on days when I just wanted some quiet. I ended up buying at least 10 puzzles these past few months, if anyone in NYC is interested in a puzzle swap please hit my line. I love that it’s intentional time away from my screen.

I’m someone who’s always had a hard time slowing down, I have a hard time sitting still in my apartment. I have a lot of nervous energy, and I will tell my secrets just to fill the silence in a conversation, a bad habit I’m actively working on. When I started running in college and began training for my first half-marathon, marathon, and other races I had a really hard time giving myself permission to rest. I felt like I had to get my mother, a lifelong runner and Boston Qualified Marathoner, to give me clearance on that rest. This wasn't to any fault of her own— I only began running in college simply because she didn’t pressure me to in high school and never made me feel like I had to run a marathon with her, it was a personal goal of mine to become closer to her. She of course always encouraged my rest and told me that it’s better to show undertrained and uninjured than overtrained and injured. I had a hard time giving myself back that permission since losing her.

Each year I was focused on running more and more, increasing my mileage, and stuck on the quantitative. It seeped into other aspects of my life, how many books I was reading, how many movies I was watching. It always felt like other people were doing more, consuming more. I started to make a shift in 2024, I read fewer books than I had in previous years, ran less, watched less, and did less. It felt good. No one cared that I didn't read 100 books, or that I ran less than 1000 miles for the first time in 5 years.

Most of my Saturdays this winter looked the same. A long walk instead of a run, smoked cherry incense, a sad virtual fireplace on the TV, little lights on no big light, and a blanket on the floor for my knees so I could do my puzzle on the coffee table comfortably while listening to a podcast or record. Bonus points if I was wearing toe stretchers (bunion hive rise). It felt natural to lean in, and adapt my lifestyle to the season instead of trying to keep the same social or personal habits year round.

Now that we’re in Aries season I’ve been feeling the cardinal energy and am ramping up things in most areas of my life. On Tuesday I went with my friends Dalia and Neckea to a beautiful art exhibition at The Lower Eastside Girls Club. It felt so nice to leave work in the daylight and get a chance to socialize with friends instead of trudging home in the dark and doing the same things. I get stuck in a loop of what’s easiest sometimes and that can be isolating. Wednesday I went for a run with my friend Gabi, and it was the first time I had run with someone else since the fall, I forgot how much lighter I feel when I’m not focused on a time or distance and am just letting my feet hit the pavement at a conversational pace and catching up with a friend.

For the rest of April as the weather ebbs and flows I’ll try to adjust my schedule to match. I’m looking forward to the quiet rainy weekend ahead just as much as the days when I can sit in the park at lunchtime to feel the sun on my face, another intentional springtime habit. For the first time in a while, I’m excited to see how the rest of the year will unfold, and how I can move with the seasons instead of moving against myself.

i had hoped that through time and space i might feel

okay

walking down the stairs this afternoon i remembered

one of the last things you googled on your phone

‘how to know when to start hospice’ misspelt because

you couldn’t see out of your right eye anymore

i finally peeled off all the painters tape from the first-floor windows next to where

your hospital bed once sat

you couldn’t make it up the stairs anymore

and i wanted you to have privacy

frantically stringing up sheets that only hung for five days

People not directly impacted by the loss don't want to hear these things. They want resilience, to say sorry once and move on; they want people who can hold a conversation with sentences that don't trail off and friends who are happy to be alive. It still feels like I'm staring into the abyss when I think about living each day without her. Every day passes, and I feel farther and farther away from her. Friends want you to talk about it like something that happened to you that you have processed and moved on. Like you are okay when in reality, it is happening to you every single day. Dying is active, but death is passive, so grief must be too. They poke and prod at you and make itchy statements about how the dead would not want you to be sad or to lay in bed for three weeks. They want you to move forward. They want you to get drunk with them and have fun. They pretend that it's for your benefit and what your dead mom would wish for you. They want you to be okay again because they don't want to be burdened by your pain and suffering. If grief has made me selfish, I think that's okay. I think I've earned a bit of selfishness.

staring at myself for 15 minutes trying to figure out

i know this stuff is usually harmful

cant focus on whether or not

trying to pretend if i was better

people will stop interacting with you completely

something does not feel right

i just remembered

I was nineteen years old and unconfident when I met you six years ago. I picked a study abroad program in Paris not linked to my university on a whim needing space to meet new people and not to feel bogged down by expectations. The first words I spoke to you were a question, asking if you were Moroccan, then clarifying because I was part Moroccan. When I found out you were, I was excited. I hadn't grown up around many North African people outside my immediate extended family. I had chosen to study abroad in France partially because of the rich North African community.

We quickly became comfortable friends, connecting with a few other girls in our program. We spent our days trying to soak in as much of the city around us as possible, whether through museums, concerts, restaurants, or the many parks Paris has to offer. The moment that stands out the most to me, that marked our friendship, and I will never forget, is an impromptu evening trip to Sacré Cœur we took with our friends. November 15th, 2016, I still have a video saved from Snapchat of the hologram projected on the side of sacré cœur for an art installation, flowers blooming open against the night sky.

I had never been to church or mosque service or prayer before despite my parent's backgrounds. Both had identified as agnostic, loosely tying in more cultural aspects of their respective religious upbringings. In Sacré Cœur, around the Catholic iconography, I couldn't help but think of my mom, and the Virgin Mary 'protect me' necklace a friend had given her. The guilt I felt throughout my study abroad, being so far from her while she was terminally ill with metastatic breast cancer, was ever present in my mind. My mom had, of course, encouraged my study abroad program. She lived in Paris for a year and loved living abroad in several different countries. Living in Switzerland was where she had met my father, after all. It was hard to stop feeling guilty and imagining the worst-case scenario once it started.

The threat of terminal illness and the unknown was suffocating at that moment. I felt embarrassed as tears threatened to make themselves known because I hadn't disclosed to any of our friends that my mom was sick and wouldn't get better. People didn't understand what it was like to have a terminally ill parent, that there was always the possibility of loss, whether it was months or years away. It felt hard to explain because so much of it was unknown. When I looked over at you, I could tell something was wrong. You were uncharacteristically quiet, even for a church, your face sullen. I asked what was wrong, and you managed to say to me that your mom was sick; I couldn't help myself from apologizing and telling you I understood. I was shocked when you told me she wouldn't get better and that it was terminal. I hadn't met anyone else who understood what I was going through. I'm not sure how either of us managed to choke out that both of our moms had a form of terminal cancer that night. Our words were garbled, and our voices thick with emotion. We lit two prayer candles for our moms and promised each other that we were there for one another to talk to whenever needed.

Four years later, we walked together, and you gave me the space to talk about what it had been like the last week of her life. Your mom had passed away just over a year before, it had been two months for me, but we both still felt numb, our day-to-day activities and tasks robotic. Survival mode, we said to each other. It hurts too much to think about; I blurted out in a strangled sob. I can't function when I remember; I don't want to exist when I remember. I'm not sure how many minutes passed as we hovered outside the restaurant, not ready to pick up the food and brave the cashier. No one else understood what it was like to see her that way, to care for her physically, or to see your mom incapacitated when you were 23. I felt so angry at our friends and everyone else who hadn't lost a parent and hadn't experienced having a sick parent for years of their life. These people didn't have to wake up in the middle of the night to pee and remember that their mom was dead.

With you, I can cry or sit in silence and talk about the darkest parts of our losses. Though we each have three siblings, it's not as easy to talk to someone related to you sometimes. With siblings, you are tangled up in the same grief but experience it differently. With you, I don't feel judged for feeling so much anger around my loss or embarrassed by my inability to feel normal. I don't feel stupid when I yell about how terrible people can be when they haven't experienced a significant loss in their immediate family at such a young age. I know you know what it feels like for your world to stop and to see everyone else carry on around you. I know that you understand what it's like to be out with friends thinking about your mom and feeling yourself shut down. How could you possibly be happy in the face of indescribable pain? I know you know how scary the idea of forgetting is and how much harder it can be to remember.

Every morning it is the first thing that enters my mind, and every evening when I'm falling asleep, it is the last thing I think about.

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