My mother died from colon cancer in 2004, when I was twenty-four. She was my best friend, though the more time passes, the more I wonder what kind of friend I was to her. All things considered, it could have been worse. Through the chemo, radiation, and seeing her so frail, she still managed to carpe diem the hell out of life before she died. And when she did get really sick, it was only for a few months. I'm sure those were not easy months for her, and it was fairly awful to witness in small doses (since we were selfish and young, and 400 miles away, and she was a wonderful mother, it was in small doses that we witnessed her being really sick up until the last couple of weeks), but it's easier for us (me and my younger brother and father), knowing that the bulk of the time that she was sick, she was able to do the things she loved, the things she didn't have time to do when she was too busy living her life to live in her life.
In many ways, I am grateful that cancer gave her a wake up call, that her dying allowed me to be the person I am today, that at least I had her till twenty-four. But of course that doesn't change the fact that she is gone and we are still here without her, and that even through the happy moments, the moments of grace and joy and high spirits, there will always be a terrible darkness waiting, the shard of longing and missing her and wishing against logic and sanity that she would change her mind about dying and come back to us.
Yeah so, why? I like writing to her, about her. It brings her back. It makes me sad but it makes me real, to myself that is, not to the e-world. It makes her real to me. Maybe it even brings back the tiny details, like the fact that the hair clips I was wearing yesterday were hers, and I'd totally forgotten it.
When I was twenty-four, newly motherless and spending the bulk of my free time crying on the floor by the foot of my bed, I felt for a year or two that I would have been much happier if I could have died too and gone with her wherever she was going. Back then, it would have been nice to find more personal material on the internet besides Meet Up motherless daughters groups that were in the suburbs (I didn't have a car), or one in which I was much younger than everyone, or internet forums that didn't want to let me in because I was too old (what?) for the early twenty-something group by the time I got around to it a few years later.
I did go to a meeting or two and it was very eye opening and comforting, I wish there were some closer to where I live.
Women folk reading this:
Read Motherless Daughters by Hope Edelman (okay, I still haven't finished, but every time I read even a page, it makes me feel like I understand so much more even though it doesn't necessarily make me feel better). It's got different sections that are useful to different stages of your life so you can get a lot out of it whether you read the whole thing all at once or just bits at a time. Contact the people in the back of the book or google motherless daughters (groups). Start a group in your town. Reach out to other people. In the end, no matter how awkward that might make you feel, or rejected/hurt when people don't understand, it's good to have a support network, and who knows, maybe you will find someone who does understand.
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