Facing a Motherless Mother’s Day

It sucks and there’s nothing you can do about it.

FOR THOSE OF US without our moms, Mother’s Day no longer has the same meaning. What was once a day of gratitude and celebration has become just another excruciating reminder she’s not here.

When we lose someone we love, we inherit this gaping hole that can never be filled — no matter what anyone tells you. My sister died over thirty years ago and trust me that abyss is still as bottomless as ever.                                        

This is my second year alone. The first was brutal. As much as I wanted to put all these feelings down on paper, I couldn’t get there. Perhaps I didn’t know how, or maybe I just wasn’t ready to open the shutters and rip off the Bandaid.

(Mom, age 24, pregnant with me)

Mom was ninety-one when she died from Alzheimer’s. And for thirty-five of those years I’d been a mother; four a grandmother. Together we shared whatever bullshit life threw at us along with a semi-equal dose of happiness.

(My wedding day)

Unlike someone who lost their mom young, I was lucky in that I had years with her. Years to work out the usual kinks, to dote on her as she got older, to make peace with a tumultuous past and accept who we were as women.

(Mom, age 37, pretending she could play the piano)

Some of my friends have already lost their parents; while others are undergoing the process as we speak. This circle of life stuff is so goddamn hard. Even if they’re in their 80s or 90s that doesn’t mitigate the pain of losing a parent. You think you’re prepared. Especially if you’ve been in that designated caregiver slot for a long time where snatches of sleep and time to yourself are as rare as a snowball’s chance in hell. But I’m here to tell you that when that day arrives, the expectation of it and the reality of it are galaxies apart.

The most universal truth I know is that real pain isn’t necessarily in the experience of loss, rather in the aftermath of it when we have to dig deep into a place we didn’t even know existed.

Recently my granddaughter and I watched a video of us baking cookies. It was a splendid day, a generational affair. My daughter shooting the video and Mom making sure Meghan didn’t fall off the chair. Seeing Mom in the flesh (sort of) large as life and the tears streaking down my cheeks, this button of a girl wrapped her arms around my neck and said, “I miss GG too.”

I never knew my great-grandmother. She passed away long before I was born. But if we did experience one another, I’d like to imagine our bond would have been as magical as the one Mom and Meghan shared. While the disease continued to eat away at my mother’s brain, she might have forgotten everyone else’s name and face under the sun, but not Meghan’s.

When it comes to my relationship with Mom, I have no regrets. (Okay, maybe one or two, but nothing that leaves me stuck in the mud.) I’ve learned through stumbling and suffering if we want to get through the darkness, if we want to heal, we must lean in. We work with whatever we have. And what I have are memories, of her, of us, both vast and vivid. An encyclopedic catalog of images, smells, and soundbites that span a lifetime.

The beach. Waves roaring. Piper plovers. The salty spray of summer mornings on my face. She’s holding my hand, encouraging me into the water. I had on my favorite animal print bathing suit. I was three.

Kissing me goodnight. Ivory soap, a hint of cigarette smoke, pulling the covers up to my chin, telling me to check underneath my pillow in the morning. I had just lost my first tooth. I was six.

The kitchen. Perched on a stool. My*T*Fine chocolate pudding, brownies, chocolate chip cookies just coming out of the oven, my little flour-crusted fingers obeying her commands. “Mix the sugar and butter until its creamy.” “Be careful with the vanilla or it’ll spill.” This was an ongoing adventure from the time I was four.

The hospital. My son was a day old. Beaming, hair tousled, she’s holding him as if nothing else in the world mattered but this precious bundle cradled in her arms. I was twenty-nine.

My daughter’s baby shower. Chanel №5, red lipstick, red blouse, red nail polish. (She loved red.) Mom overwhelmed by all the people she didn’t know. But smiling, happy. I was sixty-one.

Like I said … encyclopedic.

                           Ultimately, it’s all about moving forward and how we move forward.

So, yeah, today’s gonna suck. That’s the bottom line. And even though that hole will never fill, I know in time I’ll be okay because as humans we are hard-wired to survive. How we accomplish that is entirely up to us.

 

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