Not having a mom on Mother’s Day is like being newly single on Valentine’s Day.
You don’t want to be that bitter person… but you are.
You don’t want to resent other women for having a mom to love… but you do.
You wish you could stop feeling sorry for yourself … but you can’t.
Mother’s Day is meant to honor the women who brought us into the world and who raised us. Today, mothers all over the world will be brought breakfast in bed or taken out for brunch. They might receive a handmade card from their 5 year-old, or a new piece of jewelery from an adoring husband. Every year in elementary school, we made crafts to take home for mom. Flowers and garden ornaments were the popular choice. The first time I made my own mom breakfast in bed, I was 6 years old. I was so proud of myself – I made mom toast with lots of margarine on it, because that’s the way it tastes best (not knowing that she always ate it dry). I got dad to help me with the eggs (because the shells always seemed to make it in when I did it myself). I even got mom some chocolate! (no matter that it was already in the pantry; it’s the thought that counts, right?) Mom didn’t have the heart to tell me that bittersweet baker’s chocolate isn’t meant for eating.
This year however, the chocolate will remain in the pantry. No flowers will be bought, no breakfast made. This year I will watch in bitter silence as all my girlfriends change their Facebook profile pictures to ones of themselves and their mothers, hugging and smiling for the camera. This is because this year, as with the past 4 years, I have no mother. Brain cancer killed my mom. I was still a teenager, and she wasn’t just my mom… she was my best friend. We didn’t drift apart during my teenage years as is often the case with many mother-daughter relationships. I could talk to her about anything. My mom was everything I wish I was – patient, wise, friendly, humble. She thought before speaking and rarely offended anyone. She was a great listener, and had many close friends. She was understanding of people’s differences, and always tried to forgive and right wrongs. She stood up for herself and her family. She was everything I wish I could be. Even battling cancer for 13 years didn’t bring down her spirits – it only made her more determined to live her life to the fullest and love with all her heart, for as much or as little time as she had left.
This summer it will have been 4 years since she died, and while day to day life is as normal as it will ever get, it seems as if when the grief does rush back in an unexpected flurry of messy emotions. My guard is down and I am crippled by the pain of her death. My chest tightens as I freeze, squeeze my eyes together, dig my nails into my palms and try to just breath. Almost like ‘if I don’t move, I won’t crumble’. Hah. Good luck. I can feel the panic bursting on my insides. Sometimes I can stop it before it bubbles over. Other times, I break down. Between the Facebook pictures, ads on the radio and TV and being a functioning person in society, this past week has put me on edge more often than I care to admit. Earlier tonight The Boy and I were watching SNL. A sentimental commercial for Mother’s Day jewelery came on. It happened so fast. One moment I was fine, the next I was curling into his chest, shaking with dry sobs as I muttered about how I couldn’t wait for this fucking day to be over already. Even as I write this, I have had to stop several times because my eyes are so blurry with tears that it’s impossible to read what I am trying to write.
She didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to us, to leave her children with any parting words of wisdom or advice. When the cancer came back for that last time, it took over faster than anyone could have anticipated. Memories are all I have to remember her by. Pictures only tell part of the story. She did not keep a diary or journal which I could read, but she did leave one thing that has become priceless to me, the only way I will ever get to know her as a person, and not just my mom. Letters, years worth of letters written to one of her closest friends, spanning the first 5 or 6 years of my childhood. Some were just a quick note on a blank card, others were 4 or 5 pages. The friend and my mom were both nurses who had worked together before the friend moved away, so many of the letters had to do with their occupation. Once in a while though, my mom would express her frustrations of being a Mom of 3 Wild Kids. One such letter, written when I would have been about 3 and my older brothers about 9 and 10, said:
“…Yes, it is with a sigh of relaxation that school is in but really [Deadliest Sin] is much more of a pain in the neck now with the boys gone all day. I will have to start teaching her new things- puzzles. Dress dolls.
Actually she helped me wash walls last week. She put enough soap and water on to peel the plaster off and then realized that she could make real neat designs with dirt from the plants! The kid has a strong character.
I was trying to clean house for a baby shower for my brother’s kid. I had about 20 people come over last Saturday night. Managed to get my house in respectable order.
With [Deadlist Sin] around it was a nightmare at times- take the wall washing. Washing windows and then she would lick them. Walks around with plants dragging by the roots and then I quote, “Oh oh mommy!!” This kid is really something. I got so tired of sending her to bed half a dozen times I finally tied her door shut so she couldn’t open it. Then the howling and crying started. Finally you could hear her throwing up and of course rather than let the mess dry up and smell up the whole house I decided to bath her again and clean up the mess – all over the floor, bed, the kid.
I am seriously considering taking a week off in December and coming to visit you. Bernie can look after the kids…”
While I mourn the loss of my mother, what grieves me more is that I shall never get to know my her as a fellow woman. Many of my friends are now getting married, having kids of their own and developing the kind of friendship with their mom that I will never have. My mom was the only girl in her family, so I have no aunts to fill her place, nor grandmothers to seek maternal advice from. Those letters are my greatest treasure. Tomorrow I will spend some quiet time reading them over and looking at old family photos. I may not be able to give my mom a hug and tell her I love her, but I will be honoring her. Telling her story to a bunch of strangers. Posting her photo on my Facebook.
She may not be alive anymore, but she will never be dead to me.
