My Mothers Goodbyes

My Mothers’ Goodbyes

I am motherless and have been most of my life. My mother died barely a month after my second birthday. Her death has made all the difference in my life. She left me with so many questions unanswered; she left me with so many experiences unrealized. My life has often revolved around those questions and those unfulfilled needs that a daughter has of her mother. I often wonder how my mother and I said goodbye that day she died. I create scenarios of our times together before her death; I create the feelings of love that I believe we shared as a mother and a daughter. I imagine her because I cannot remember her.

A small, brown-haired girl clings to her mother’s skirt and cries, “Mommy, I doan wan you ta go!” The young, pretty woman reaches down and gently pulls the child from her and kneels down and speaks tenderly, “Hush now, Pooh!” You know I’ll only be away from you for a little while. You go on. Nana is waiting, and today she is baking your favorites—oatmeal raisin.” The little girl looks back at her mother only once before going inside with her Nana—never realizing that she would never again see her mother.

This may have been the way my mother and I said goodbye that morning, but I will never know for certain. My father has never been able to speak to me of my mother or of her death. I am thirty-three years old, a mother of two, and I still know next to nothing of my mother and the details surrounding her untimely death. All the information I have resides in a rubber-banded, red velvet-lined box that I found in my grandmother’s things. Like my father, my grandma would not speak of my mother’s death; however, she kept the newspaper clippings telling of her murder, some locks of her hair, her burial cross and her death certificate tucked away in that old, faded red box. So it seems that my mother’s life is reduced to nothing more than old pictures, forgotten relics in an old red box and the imagined scenarios of her grieving daughter.

I grieve every single day for my mother. I long for the things we could have shared. I long for the memories of a life we could have enjoyed together. Thirty-one years have passed since that fateful day when I became a child without a mother. I have created lists: my mother never waved goodbye as the yellow bus took me to my first day of school, she never helped me learn my ABC’s, she never consoled me when I fell trying to roller-skate, nor scolded me for getting dirt on my new Easter dress; she never met my first boyfriend, nor helped me pin the boutonniere on his tuxedo jacket. My mother missed all but two years of my childhood. Then, as I entered adulthood, my mother missed my wedding day. She never held her granddaughter nor helped her grandson blow the candles out on his birthday cake. My mother missed my life, and I missed my mother’s life. When trying to cope with the pain I experience, each and every time I wish she were with me, I create scenarios about how it would have been if she were still alive.

I realize now that I, as a young child, started creating stories about my mother and me in an attempt to ease my feelings of loss and sadness. Now, as an adult, I realize that I had never completely allowed myself to grieve for my mother—until six months ago when my “other” mother’s death finally released me from my imagined goodbyes, my imagines conversations and my imagined moments together with my mother. For the first time, I completely felt the intense pain that comes with the death of one’s mother.

Marian was my “other” mom. I married her son fourteen years ago, and by doing so I had become, in every aspect of the word, her daughter. She and I shared so much together—happy times (holidays, shopping, excursions, craft making and cookie baking) and sad times (death of beloved friends, my divorce from her son, her fight against cancer). Even after she was legally no longer my “mom,” Marian refused to stop loving me. We still chatted on the phone. We still shared a special bond that exists between mothers and daughters. Marian was everything I had ever imagined a “mom” could be. As the years passed, she had somehow eased the sadness and longing I felt for my lost mother. I thought she and I would always be together, but a diagnosis of lung cancer changed that thought.

I dealt with the news of her cancer in a variety of ways. Sometimes, I just thought positive—“Mom won’t die. Look at the advances that medical science has made.” Other times, I thought spiritually—“Dear God, please don’t take my mom!” And finally, I resigned myself to the fact that she would eventually die from her illness—“Yes, Mom is going to die. I will say everything I need to say to her. I will prepare myself for her death.” I tried to imagine life without my “other” mom. Again, in order to ease my pain and suffering, I slipped back into creating scenarios—imagining the perfect ending to our perfect mother-daughter relationship.

I remember the last time Mom and I spoke. The pictures of our last time together are frozen forever in my memory. I remember her lying in the spare room. Pictures of her grandchildren were tacked up with multi-colored pushpins over the yellowing school pictures of her own grown children. The kids’ coloring tacked up along the wall behind her head. The soft and cuddly afghan that had kept all of us—grandkids, sons and son-in- law, daughter and daughters-in-law warm—now covered her. She was no longer a robust, rosy-cheeked sprite. Cancer had consumed her body, and now, the twin bed she was sleeping in seemed much too big.

Her skin was transparent. As I held her hand, I could barely feel life in her. Irregular and weak, the blood scarcely moved her skin as it made its way into her thin, luke-warm hand. Her face seemed locked in a grimace. Mom tried hard to smile, but pain made her gasp. However, her eyes, when she looked at me, smiled. As I look at Mom, tears filled my eyes. She squeezed my hand and her eyes revealed her understanding.

“Are you happy, dot?” she asked me in a raspy whisper.

“Yes, Mom, I am very happy.” Her eyes twinkled approval and she squeezed my hand once more.

“Good. Then it is as it should be. You are a good mom, dot. You are a good daughter, dot. I’m very proud of you. I love you.” As she said these last words to me, she reached up and patted my tear-streaked face. “Oh, Mom! I love you too! Oh God…Mom!” I leaned over and hugged her to me. I needed to make her feel my life. Maybe I could share my life-force with her. Maybe I could will her to keep on living. I didn’t want her to go. I was not ready. I could not let her die.

Marian, my “other” mom, died five days later.

Many people, while trying to console me, have told me how lucky I was to have been able to say goodbye to Mom before she died—how much easier it would be now because we, her children, had “prepared for her death” and had “said everything that needed to be said” before she died. At first, I believed their words. I agree—I am lucky. I did say goodbye to Mom. I did prepare myself for her death. I did say everything I needed to say to her. But now, six months later, I realize that I did not say everything I needed to say to her. I was not prepared for her death. And, I realize that I will always be trying to say goodbye.

I have lost two mothers. One, I never said goodbye to; the other, I attempted to say goodbye to. One, I have no memories of our lives together; the other, I have many memories of our lives together. One died without warning; the other died with warning— years after the initial diagnosis. Was either death less painful? If I could choose how my daughter would lose her mother, would one way be preferable to the other? No. For both of my mothers, death was a peaceful ending of their suffering, but death was not a peaceful ending of our relationships—as mothers and daughter. I was not ready to let either of my mothers die, nor am I, today, any more prepared for their deaths. Now, they both will miss the rest of my life—a life I still want them desperately to be a part of.

One day, my own daughter will experience the pain of losing her mother. She too, will attempt to ease her suffering by creating scenarios of what might have been. After I die, she will wonder at the things she and I might have said, or she will try to imagine my reaction to some decision or event in her life. She will attempt to make sense of her loss by imagining the answers I might have given, had she asked me the questions. Ultimately, however, my daughter will persevere and continue to live life without me. So, for today, I will attempt to prepare her in the best way possible—I will tell her about my mothers’ goodbyes.

END OF ESSAY