Transition.

A hissing sound. A rattle and a hiss, that’s what I remember. I can close my eyes right now and hear the hissing as it rang about my two room studio on the west side of Harlem. Winter of 2015, forecast: relentlessly breezy with an unforgiving chill; I paused the television as the phone rang, and instantly I recognized the area code. I felt my whole being halt. When I said hello a very calm and pleasant voice asked “Are you Jocelyn Singleton?” I can’t quite remember if I replied yes, but I know she followed with, “ You reside in New York? Are you alone? I need you to take a seat.”

“I’m at the hospital, and I wanted to notify you that your mom was having some heart issues. Her heart stopped and she didn’t make it off the table”.

Through my sobbing she heard me asking God, “Can they try again? She must of thought I was asking her, because it was then I heard the sincerest, “I am so sorry for your lost.”

Thinking back on 2015, I remember I was just putting myself back together from a heartbreak. Finding my balance again, and sharing the new year with my mother filled me with so much excitement. I had planned this weekend out on the town with my mom in celebration of her birthday. In celebration of my new home and my new adventures. I was overjoyed with her arrival that I spent most of the day ‘redecorating’. I moved the sofa two inches to the right, sat the television on a right angle in the far left corner and changed the linen on the bedding twice. She would have been proud of my feng shui and small space living.

We had plans to meet at 42nd Bus terminal around 5pm on January 25, just in time for some birthday shenanigans on the 26th.

Now I want you to take a moment and imagine you’re sitting at an arrival gate waiting for your best friend, and you just wait while everyone else meet there’s.

I admit, I have never been open about discussing the impact of losing my mother, not even in my therapy sessions where I often times just cried.

But 24 days ago as most of us cheerfully greeted the start of 2018 I received a message that read,

I began to think about all the tears, sadness, feelings of loneliness, and questions I faced about life, and the urge to be open overwhelmed me.

I’ve spent nearly three years trying to make my life work the way it did before she left. I’ve had panic attacks, hid under covers and behind closed doors because I was so afraid I’d never get back to myself; back to who I was before.

I hid in sorrow.

Worked 16 hour days.

Than no days at all.

Justified my absence from friends and family with work.

Wondered the city with no destination.

Cried in the shower.

Cried at work.

Went to therapy.

Wrote about it.

Drank about it.

Loved a man, who didn’t love me.

Quit my job.

Went back to work.

Enrolled in school…..again

I once heard that if you wanted to reinvent yourself you had to endure a lost. A break down, a lost so close to your existence that you felt YOU wouldn’t be able to survive it.

Accepting that my mother found peace did just that, and having her in my life exposed me to the true beauty of love and forgiveness. When I think about our relationship I bask in laughter and my heart smiles because I can remember every time she was THERE. All the laughs and every hour calls I made to her just because. All the truths she told me and how I reassured her I loved her.

But let me be honest, in the mist of forlorn, Its hard to be aware that you are becoming someone else. I now know that I was evolving and growing through that pain, but it felt like the longest and loneliest pity party.

Many of us don’t understand that grief is a process, there are stages we work through and it’s okay to take your time in those stages. It’s okay to talk about it, and not want to talk about. It’s okay to grow through the emotions so long as your are growing. Feel what ever you are experiencing so that you can let it go!

There is no magic potion to the process, but you will get through it if you decide everyday that you are going to move forward.

I’ve learned so much about myself, and that through my stages of grief I often times find it easy to hide in my darkness, cope in my solitude, and I am abundantly grateful for the people in my life who didn’t make me feel guilty for wanting to just be.

I appreciate those people. I thank those people, because far to many people rush the process of others or know exactly what the next person should be doing with their life.

We are all different yet so much alike all at once, and our lives are full of transitions. Transitions that shape us to be individuals, and we must remember we are never alone in our journey.

My experience shaped me to want to live and choose love over everything. It took me three years to understand my process of isolation, three years to feel like a better version of me.

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