August 16, 2026, Second Update

Well, my day went from bad to worse.

I kept walking past my mom’s room and seeing her hospital bag sitting there. It has been there since she died, still packed from the hospital, and every time I walked by her room I could see it.

Today, I couldn’t look at it anymore.

So I unpacked it.

I wasn’t ready to do that. I didn’t suddenly have some burst of courage or decide that today was the appropriate time. I forced myself to do it because seeing that bag sitting there untouched was hurting me, and somehow opening it hurt even more.

I wrote a poem about unpacking it because sometimes writing is the only way I know how to get this shit out of me. I posted the poem right before this update if you want to read it. It probably explains what that moment felt like better than I’m capable of explaining it here.

Now I’m back in bed crying.

And Beaker is eating dinner in my mom’s room.

That’s something new.

He pushes his food bowl around when he eats, because apparently eating dinner from one stationary location is far too conventional for a beagle. Lately, though, he’s been pushing it into Mom’s room.

He never did that before.

Mom and Beaker were snack buddies. She loved feeding him little things, and naturally he loved being the recipient of whatever she decided he needed. They had their own relationship completely separate from mine. She adored that dog, defended him every time I called him a dickhead and spoiled him every chance she got.

Part of me wonders if pushing his bowl into her room is his little doggie way of feeling close to her.

Maybe that room still smells like her to him. Maybe he associates it with her and with food and with all those moments they shared. I don’t know exactly what goes through his little beagle brain, but watching him eat in there is incredibly sweet.

And it absolutely breaks my heart.

Because I think in his own way, he’s grieving too.

We both lost our family.

Beaker didn’t only lose my parents. His entire daily life changed. He lost Mom’s caregivers too. We still see them, of course, but they aren’t here every day anymore. They loved him and he loved them. There used to be people constantly moving through this house, talking to Mom, caring for her, giving Beaker attention and probably sneaking him things he wasn’t supposed to eat.

Now it’s mostly just us.

Everything is different.

The house is different. Our routines are different. The sounds are different. The people who walk through the door are different.

And tonight, I feel every bit of that difference.

I’m not ready for tomorrow.

I’m not ready to go downtown and file my mom’s will. I’m not ready for another piece of paperwork that exists solely because my mother is dead. I’m not ready for whatever feelings come with doing it, especially after what unpacking that hospital bag did to me today.

I’m realizing there are a lot of things I’m not ready for.

But grief doesn’t seem particularly interested in whether I’m ready.

Right now, it feels like there is a ten-ton weight sitting on my chest. It’s that horrible kind of grief where the pain feels physical, where crying doesn’t release enough of it and you can’t seem to get a full breath around the weight of everything you’re feeling.

I hate these moments.

I hate how grief can sit quietly beside me for a few hours and then suddenly consume the entire fucking room. I hate that an ordinary bag can destroy me. I hate that watching my dog eat his dinner can make me cry. I hate that tomorrow I have to wake up and do another thing I don’t want to do because life keeps requiring things from me even though part of me desperately wants everything to stop for a while.

So I’m back in bed.

I’m crying.

Beaker is eating dinner in Mom’s room, probably remembering his snack buddy in whatever way dogs remember the people they love.

And tonight, I think the two of us are just missing her together.

Neither one of us knows what to do with this new version of our home yet.

Everything changed.

We weren’t ready.

We’re still not.