No matter how many times I’ve been in the months of April and May since my mom died, I’m always somehow looking for a reason why I’m sad. It’s not always a huge sadness; usually, it’s a low grade feeling of purposelessness that creeps up on me. I try to put my finger on it, somehow failing to remember (accept!?) that I’m just grieving. May is the month in which my mom died. The same month I celebrate a sobriety anniversary. The same month my grandmother (my mom’s mom) died. And then, of course, June 1 is the fourth anniversary of my dad’s passing. I really shouldn’t wonder why I feel a little down around this time of year…

But that’s just it: it’s been more than a handful of years, and I guess I believe I should be in a different place by now. If I’m honest, I totally am in a different place! But I’m not “over it.” You know? And I realize you never get “over” losing someone. Even so, some part of me is judging that I’m not “far enough along” on the pathway to “past it.” And that, apparently, is a lesson I am hard-pressed to learn, so I just keep on trying to learn it.

Because I am a creative, part of my learning process is, well, to create. Last August, I wrote about the grief I still feel for the loss of my mom. It was one of my most popular posts on this blog to date. In the piece I mentioned having read a book, The AfterGrief: Finding Your Way Along the Long Arc of Loss, by Hope Edelman, which helped me greatly. I also mentioned that I had listened to some tapes I had recorded back in 2000, of me and my mom talking - about which I had a lot of…feelings.

Well, in an attempt to keep moving forward—with learning the lessons I need to learn about grief and loss and life—I made a limited podcast series titled Hello Again, Mom, based on my experience of reading that book, and listening to these tapes again, after more than 20 years. I’ll be releasing the podcast on this substack very soon, but behind a paywall, due to the personal nature of the content*. I won’t say more than that, because the teaser says it better. But I do hope you’ll listen.

—MBF

*even if you don’t purchase a paid subscription to the podcast, you’ll still get all the regular stuff you’ve been getting on Unfit to Print - no need to sign up again. I appreciate you, and all you’re doing to try to make this world a little bit better than how you found it.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit melissafondakowski.substack.com