In The Leftovers, an HBO show created by Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta based on a book by Tom Perrotta, 140 million people simultaneously disappear from the planet without explanation. The world goes on, fundamentally changed, but in many ways the same.
It feels like Mom "departed" like that. Here one moment, and the next vanished. I was with Mom when she died. I was at her funeral. But I feel like I'll never internalize her as dead. I've spent too much of my life with Mom alive, and my reality stubbornly refuses to accommodate any change to that fact. When I call home, maybe the reason she doesn't come to the phone is because she is out getting her hair done. Maybe she is resting in the other room. If she isn't at home when I'm back in Michigan, she must be out somewhere, maybe lost and searching for home.
And if she is gone, it isn't because she is dead. If feels more correct that she has disappeared to some place, but she lives on somewhere out there.
