Without Mom

When I wrote the title, just the title of this piece, I felt my tear ducts well. As many of you will know, my Mother passed away when I was very young, a few months before I turned five. She had cancer, she fought, and she didn’t make it.

Considering I was so young when it happened, I feel like I have a surprising number of memories of my Mother, for which I am grateful. I remember an Easter and a Christmas, her sitting in a rocking chair and holding my hand through the bars of my crib, her cooking for us. I remember her having to stay in bed a lot after her lymph node surgery, I remember being in the hospital with her, and telling her that Dad found a really nice spot for her in the graveyard near a tree, so she would have both shade and sun. That one breaks my heart a little, knowing that she would have known I didn’t know what I was saying. I remember the day she passed away. Thankfully it was overnight in her sleep. I remember my Dad telling me, and somehow understanding on a minimal level what it meant. I remember seeing her after she passed, in her bed, surrounded by candles, her parents, and other family. Her eyes weren’t quite closed. Her hand, which I reached out to hold, was stiff, and cool. I can still feel it.

That was over 25 years ago now. There have been waves of difficulty over the past two and half decades. Some years the anniversary of her death is a time of reflection, where I talk to her, and hope she is looking down and feeling proud of me. Others, it is a day of intense sadness, where I am overcome with the loss. I expected that with time, it would get easier, as the reality of those memories I cherish became further and further away. And it did. Some years I acknowledge the day, and I can move on easily. Over the past two or three years, that hasn’t been the case. I have been hitting those milestones of adulthood, which you may wish to have a Mother present, for support, or just to share things with. Moving in with a significant other, making career decisions, getting engaged, getting married, and now, starting a family. I won’t ever know what the bond between Father and son is like, but I do know that as a daughter, I have missed having a Mother to turn to. To call when I am heart broken, to counsel in times of indecision, to share in exciting news. I didn’t see this change coming, and it winded me a little. I cried more over the loss of a Mother I hadn’t had around for decades in the year coming up to my wedding than I had in years. I ached. I wanted so much to have a Mother there to watch me walk down the aisle. My husband lost his Father a few years ago, and I know he felt the same pain on our wedding day, not having him there. We lit a candle for each of them during our ceremony, to have a little of their light with us.

I am blessed now, to have several wonderful, generous Mother figures in my life to help me navigate these moments, and support me in the times I wish I had a Mother to call. I am so grateful for them. It won’t ever be quite the same though. And I know, that even if I did have a Mother around, that wouldn’t guarantee that we would be close; not all parents and their children are. Maybe that is part of what makes it harder - the knowing I never even got a chance to try. I know friends who have lost parents later on in life, and I bet you it was even harder for them than it was/is for me, having had those years to form bonds with them. I will always have the idea of what a Mother is supposed to be, the ghost of a memory that never was, only what I imagined, hoped, it would be.

Now that I am on the path to becoming a Mother myself, I have been experiencing the unexpected, and yet I feel not totally irrational fear, that my child will someday experience the same loss. It is reality that we all lose our parents at some point, but for some of us, that time comes too soon. I’ll never know when my time will be. When the little life growing in my belly kicks, or wiggles, I might talk and coo and maybe even sing. Sometimes I will hold the curve of my womb, and I will cry as I utter “All I want to do is keep you safe.” I have a friend who lost both his parents very young, and is now a Father of three beautiful little girls. He has kindly shared that he has experienced similar fear with his daughters. I am sad that he has these fears too, yet thankful I am not alone. We agreed that it was a crap club to be a part of, but at least we have someone to share it with. He also shared that being a parent has helped him to process so many things for himself, that it has been an opportunity to confront the parts of himself he had been shying away from. I hope I find opportunities for the same reflections as I grow as a parent.

I want to be there when my kids do things like graduate High School, University, get married, have kids. Or whatever they decide are important milestones for themselves. I might not get that choice though. My Mother didn’t. I don’t think this feeling will ever go away. It might be less intense, years after I am done having kids, and like so many others, they grow up without the presence of a maternal Grandmother. This isn’t about them yet though, it’s about me. About the little girl still looking to the clouds for maternal reassurance instead of picking up the phone. As I grow into my own as a Mother, I’ll never be able to say things like “That’s what my Mom used to do,” because I won’t know. Stories only assuage so much.

I can’t see into the future, none of us can (no, no we can’t). Given the choice, would I want to? At the moment, probably not. I am so enamoured with every new day of pregnancy (well, mostly), with every kick, that I want to stay present. I haven’t stared at my stomach this much since I was worried about the First Year 15 in University. I’m not worried about being strong enough for my kids as a Mother, really I’m not. I’m ready for this. I know there will be challenges I can’t prepare myself for, but I am genuinely excited and curious to experience them and grow from them. I am grateful to have a partner I love to take them on with, and 3 decades of life experience to help me sort them out, one stride at a time, as best I can. Hopefully, the fears I have now will remind me to love my family every single day, because we just never know how many of those days we are going to get.