Mother's Day Number Four

My fourth Mother's Day as a motherless daughter. Though the shock of it is gone now, the aching still persists. The desire to share life with the person who so greatly defined and shaped mine. The comfort and safety of her arms even though - or maybe because - I am the one now providing comfort to the next generation. It all still presses on me, begging to be fulfilled.

No, it is not shocking to me anymore that she is gone. I have accepted that. This is who I am now. But that aching - that aching sometimes feel like it defines my every breath.

A dear friend sent me this column about losing a mom young. In it, the author quotes Anna Quindlen, who lost her own mom at 19 -
"My mother died when I was nineteen. For a long time it was all you needed to know about me. A kind of vest-pocket description of my emotional complexion: 'Meet you in the lobby in ten minutes — I have long brown hair, am on the short side, have on a red coat, and my mother died when I was nineteen.'"

Losing my momma at 29 feels like this middle ground of loss. I had almost three decades with her. She saw the biggest milestones - the graduations, the wedding, my own induction into motherhood. Those memories that I cherish, those photographs I weep over on long sleepless nights, those are mine forever. Sorority sisters, kids I grew up with, friends I have made as an adult who still carry the weight of an early loss - too many have joined this sad club long before me, robbed of those experiences. I remember so clearly  holding my best friend's hand as she whispered goodbye to her own momma in a crowded funeral home at only ten. Ten. An unimaginable pain so brutally early.

And while I can recognize that I am lucky for what I had - that I had far more than others will ever get - and while I am genuinely thankful for the time and memories, the aching persists. When I see my momma's friends celebrating their own moms - great women in their 80s and 90s, my heart aches. When friends' birthday parties are full of doting grandmoms whose grandbabies will remember them - actively and vividly remember them - the aching persists. When B asks me if I am sad because my momma can't hug me... oh, how the aching persists. 

Sadly, it seems every year more and more join our club at a faster rate. In this past year alone, my cousins, my mother in law, friends from high school and college, and neighbors all said goodbye to their own matriarchs. They joined the club with bowed heads and hushed voices, turning to each other for solace and comfort in a truly unique grief. Your parents are your foundation - a constant for you from the day you are born. And losing your momma ... that is just a violent, sudden destruction of what built you. 

So you rebuild. And you find your footing again. And you surround yourself with those who fully understand, a sad little menagerie of others grieving just as deeply as you. And you build a new life that can be unbelievably happy and joyful and in so many ways simply perfect, though the aching still finds you.  

Most often when people are in the early days of loss, when they have just kissed their momma for the last time or they have come home from the funeral and the once bustling house is now oppressively silent, they will ask me "How do I get over this?" 

The hard truth is... you don't. You never really get over it. You cope with it and you continue to live. You learn how to breath again without it hurting. Your smile returns and days become more joyous than not. But you never get over it. The loss - the aching - the fundamental restructuring of your life and who you are - that never leaves. Just as, in many ways, your momma's love and lessons and strength - so deeply embedded in every ounce of you - never leaves you. 

Happy Mother's Day to all my dear friends and loved one with aching hearts this year. May the strength of your memories be stronger than the pull of your loss.