Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Life Absent of a Mother

You know the saying, "time heals all wounds." Maybe you've even said it yourself in an attempt to comfort someone. I am here to tell you, this is not true. Not at all.

Some wounds never heal.

My mother died 6 years ago. Everyone said it will get easier, it hasn't. It's still just as hard to know I will never see her again. My mother never met Alice. She asks about her all the time.

"Mama? Did you take those pictures of your mama because you wanted me to know what she looked like?" she asked me just today on the ride to Toys R Us.

I am forced to spend the rest of my life trying to teach her about a woman she will never meet. Even when sometimes I'd rather not. Even when sometimes I'd rather just cry.

I walk through my days, motherless. Most days it's just that, life absent of a mother. The dishes are loaded in the dishwasher. The towels are switched to the dryer. The dog is fed. And then, there are the moments that hit like a grenade to my core. The moments that force me to think about the severity of everything I lost. The moments that make me relive it all over again.

Recently, I visited a very good friend's father in the hospital. Sitting in a chair in a small room filled with machines and wires and monitors, it all came flooding back to me. Six years flew past me and it was yesterday. It was my mom lying in that bed. It was my mom talking about the food she requested for tomorrow's breakfast. It was my sisters and I talking about the next days agenda and who would be there in the morning. It was my mother's room the nurse walked in when she wrote her name on the board. It was my mother's styrofoam cup with the bendy straw sitting on the bed tray. It was me worried and terrified about what was going to happen next. I sat in that chair and mindlessly chitchatted with my heart and my mind a million miles away.

I live a motherless life and it isn't getting easier.

14 comments:

  1. It really doesn't get easier, it just gets further away.

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  2. Your previous commenter has it right, it just gets more distant. I hope the fun and good memories that you relay to your child are cause for smiles.

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    1. I try to smile. I try to make the topic of my mom completely open to Alice. I want her to feel comfortable to bring my mothers name up in casual conversation.

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  3. It doesn't get easier, and that's just proof of how wonderful a mother you had and how much you love her. (Love, not loved. She may be gone, but you still get to love her.)

    It's good that Alice asks about her. Tell her everything you can, even if it's just in little bits and pieces. The two of you can make a memory book filled with photos, your favorite memories, recipes that she's passed along, things like that. It will give Alice a connection to her past and it'll give you a place to keep your memories safe from time.

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    1. Thank you. The memory book is a very good idea. I think I will begin to work on that with Alice.

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  4. This is honestly my absolute worst nightmare about aging...losing my mother who is, hands down, my best friend. I'm so very sorry for your loss, even though it was six years ago. I know that I will feel the very same way. Sending you lots of virtual hugs, friend.

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  5. O honey I am so sorry. I can't imagine not having lost either of my parents of how difficult that would be.

    I think time makes things duller perhaps not quite as fresh as it when it first happened, but you never really forget. Not life's greatest tragedies. Those will always be with you.

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  6. Hi, I figured since we follow one another on Twitter that I should come check out your blog. I'm so glad I did - you write beautifully about such a hard, hard topic. I have not yet lost my own, but we lost my husband's mother this past summer to cancer. I still want to pick up the phone and call her when her grandson does something especially adorable. I momentarily "forget" and set something aside to bring her.
    Big hugs to you. And I like the commenter's idea about a memory book.

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    1. Thank you for the compliment and for taking the time to visit my blog.

      Losing a parent is always hard, but it's even harder when they go too soon with much life left unlived.

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  7. I hate the saying "time heals all wounds". I think time makes the wounds worse sometimes. I'm still coping with two deaths a week a part from each other in December, on top of the way too many I've had to deal with. These wounds have changed me, there is no healing from that.

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  8. "I walk through my days, motherless." I know. A 34 year old orphan, am I. I have a little 6 year old too. If I can't have my mother, it helps to be one. It really does.

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