[Trigger warning: death, loss, grief.]
“M.B. passed away this afternoon. Her sister sent me a message to let me know.”
I’m sitting at my desk, checking old, archived messages from my mother — old and archived because I generally don’t want to communicate with her and have her blocked most of the time. Her message is from nearly three weeks ago, April 23rd.
M.B. was my godmother and had been a very close friend of my mother’s, at least before my teenage years. M.B. had always been very present in my life and had become a true mother figure for me since age 17, when things started going really south with my biological mother. The latter was very upset by my godmother’s involvement in my life and support of my dreams and identity that clashed with my mother’s vision. My mother’s discontent with my godmother was so intense that it led to a friends-breakup between them and to me & my godmother having a secret relationship for decades. She was one of my strongest supporters and allies in almost all my dreams and endeavors. A lot of what I risked and achieved was thanks to my godmother. A lot of what, or who, I became was thanks to her. Until four years ago.
As my nonbinary/transmasc identity became stronger and I got to the point where I was not only ready but also in need to share with the world, starting with the trusted people closest to me, the truth of my gender identity, my godmother was naturally one of the first people I told. One of the first people I asked to use gender-neutral language for me. And she refused flat out. “For forty years I’ve known you as a girl, ‘A…a’. I’m not going to start now to contort the Italian language to address you in unnatural ways”, was her response to my coming out email.
That was four years ago. We never really reconnected after that. I was too hurt, too angry. My natural instinct, which she had for decades supported and nurtured and encouraged (& for which I’m immensely grateful), to unfold and become my true, authentic self, against all odds guided me even in this rupture.
Hence, I guess, my finding out about her death through my mother instead of directly from one of her siblings or other family members or common friends we had.
The shock of her death (not unreasonable given her age) is still so intense that I hardly know how I feel. There is immense pain, of course. I hardly slept last night, and this was probably the main reason. But this pain hasn’t taken shape, yet. It hasn’t taken on its full reality. The reality of another person who was of fundamental importance in my life now being gone. Forever. And without knowing me or accepting me as I am truly, authentically.
And, since I am single and estranged from my biological family, I have no one to support me in this pain, in this loss. When I read that message from my mother yesterday evening, I had no one to go to, no one to share or process the news with. I’m sharing it here, putting it out there into the universe, to my few readers, because there’s nowhere else to put it and it’s too much for me to bear by myself.
The Little Prince and the Fox 