motherless daughter
grief never goes away, you just become more accustomed to carrying it
My mom never Facetimed anyone.
I don’t know if she ever had an email.
She certainly never had a cellphone.
Nothing really shows up when you google her.
It’s odd to think about what the world was like when my mom left it.
She died when the first Harry Potter book was being recommended by word of mouth. Her friend had told her it was a wonderful young adult fantasy book from an unknown British author.
Texting didn’t exist yet. I fantasize that she would have been a very dorky texter. Intermingling her wildly extensive vocabulary with a few too many emojis. Just like me.
I fantasize about having a voicemail in her voice saved on my first Nokia brick phone. I know I would still have it in a safe place in a box that would have moved with me to college, to my first apartment, to my second one, into and out of storage units… I would have kept the charger to make sure I could listen to her asking when I would be home or would I please grab some milk at the store after soccer practice.
Missing my mom is something that happens to me at least a few times a month, probably at least a couple of times a week. Maybe I would send her a picture of the wisteria arbor in bloom by my house. Or me wearing the hat I’d just knit. Or maybe we would have texted in Spanish because we’re both fluent.
I’d definitely have asked if I could be on her Costco membership.
Sometimes I’d even screen her calls because that’s what kids do when their parents call.
When things feel hard in my relationship with my dad or my partner, I miss her the most. I dream that I could have always called her and that even if she gave bad advice, it would have felt like the right place to be afraid.
I wish we could have geeked out about Star Trek together. I would have insisted we go to a convention. We would have swooned together over how attractive Jean Luc Picard was. We’d probably even have matching USS Enterprise NCC 1701 tattoos.
I wish we could have gone on mother-daughter trips and learned from each other about things we believed in politically. I like to think that at the age I am now, I would have taught her a great many things too.
I wish she had been alive for me to tell her about my first kiss and it breaks my heart that if I ever get married, she won’t be part of that celebration.
I wish we had had opportunities to be two women laughing til we cried. I wish she had lived long enough to watch me develop my own weird, absurdist humor. I hope she would have thought I was funny.
It’s bizarre to lose a parent as a child because you have to live with the fact that they never get to meet who you become.
Things I got from her: a love of mysteries and Sherlock Homes, a talent for languages, a compulsive sense of empathy, a love for science fiction, an appreciation for plants and northwest botany in particular, and an intimate sense of mortality.
I wish that list was longer.
The most insane thing about this grief is how normal it feels to have living inside me.
Can you imagine longing for your entire life for someone who never knew you?
I can’t and yet it’s also a most normal and daily experience for me.
That’s what I had in my heart this morning. That’s what has visited me in casual, quiet moments this week.
Amongst the reward of doing good work, the calming walks throughout the neighborhood, the giggles with my roommate, the nourishing homemade meals I prepare for myself… little, miles-deep moments of wishing for someone to be here who isn’t.
Extra Magic: by Mary Oliver
Tiny Gifts:
This TED talk by Joseph Gordon Levitt puts words to the shift I’ve been making over the last year and a half. A movement away from making my lifestyle and myself the product, into the lived moments of discovering a rosemary bush on my walk or chuckling because I found the shape of a penis power-washed into the sidewalk across the street from my house. The shift from seeking attention to paying attention. It’s kinda everything.
My friend just published her book, Good for a Girl, and it’s on the NYT bestseller list!! It is the next book I am purchasing with my audiobook credit so that I can hear it read in her voice. Proud, impressed, and grateful to have creators like her in the world. If you’re looking for an enthralling read, the reviews coming in have been evangelical in their enthusiasm!
We’ve had sunny afternoons lately and I’ve started to notice little sprigs of new growth on the still naked branches of bushes and vines and trees in the neighborhood. I can feel spring coming. I never used to feel the seasons. I would just notice when they arrived. But since this new chapter of paying attention, I no longer feel apart from the natural world. I feel a part of it. Quietly called. What a divine place to find myself!
This week’s song:
