Mom would have been 64 this past Monday.
It didn’t occur to me that it was her birthday until mid-afternoon—maybe 3 or so. I’m certain that’s the latest in the day I’ve ever thought about it since she died.
You know, I finally stopped seeing something I think she’d be interested in and thinking I had to tell her about it, but it took a very long time to break that habit. I guess I still do it in a way, but my context has shifted. I’ll encounter something that I know she’d have enjoyed, but my initial reaction is wistful, as opposed to urgent.
Sometimes I close my eyes and try to imagine how she and I would interact today. We had made a lot of progress on seeing eye-to-eye on some things when she died. I think that would have continued, and it might even be put to bed by now.
She’d have enjoyed this blog. I’m thoroughly confident she’d have drowned in Facebook. She’d get mega-involved in one of those damned mafia/farm/aquarium/whatever games, and be all the time bothering me to get in so I could further her “career.” She’d certainly have loved Nathan, Aaron, and my sister’s daughter Rebecca to pieces. She’d bitch that I didn’t visit often enough (but mostly because of the boys).
I have not dealt with her death how I would have thought I would. Of course, as soon as you’re an adult, you realize you’re almost certainly going to bury your parents. But Mom checked out at 53, and I think her relative youth punched us all in the stomach. Lea was (barely) pregnant with Nathan. We’d been married less than four years. She’d visited our new house for the first and only time eleven days earlier.
I feel like I was just starting to be the person I was going to be/am for the majority of my adulthood when she died. I have my demons like anyone, but they’re not as scary as they used to be, and I’m sad I never got the chance to see how the 40-year-old me and my mom would relate.
I think I thought it would scar, and that would be that. Actually, most of the time it feels like a scar. But when I get reflective, I realize I can still tear it open, which isn’t very scarlike, is it? That’s the part that surprises me. Yet it’s nothing many millions of other people aren’t dealing with.
Funny how that reduces neither its poignancy nor its profundity.
You might also like:
- Up and down at Smith Lake this weekend
We had a fantastic plan for the weekend at Dad’s lake house that degraded to about a C+. First David… - Upward party at Tommy’s Pizza
The boys played their last games of the 2009-2010 Upward basketball season yesterday. Nathan’s seaso… - Puppy!
Nathan got a puppy for his birthday! We adopted her from the pound in Athens. They’re guessing boxer… - Williamsburg
Nathan and I got up at 4:00 this morning to come visit my sister in Williamsburg. (Well, actually ev… - “Mom, I’ll check in at 2:00…”
What was your leisure time like at nine years old? If you were born before 1975 or so, chances are e…
Sweet entry, Bo. You know all about my Momma. She’s been gone since 1975. I was 11. I still dream about her sometimes. I can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to still have her around. Maybe because I was only 11 when she died. I guess I picture her like her mother, but not exactly. I get a really weird feeling when I think about the fact that I’m like 5 years older now than she was when she died. Puts it in perspective somewhat. And scares me.
I agree, sweet post, Bo. It’s been a little over two years since my mom passed. I just imagine her laughing at my kids’ antics, and I miss her every day.
Bo, I’ve never even met you but you write so openly that I feel your pain. I’m so sorry when anyone loses a parent at too young of an age (what exactly is old enough though?) I can’t even begin to imagine my life without my mom in it. Her own mother died when she was only 43 years old and my mom was in her 20s. I know how devastated she was by the loss. I am always grateful to still be able to call my mom when I have some little something to share and I try to remember that when she calls for the third time in a row while I’m “busy” because she forgot to tell me something the first time she called. Great post, thank you.
I have no doubt that your mother would be proud of the man you are, Bo. I also have no doubt that you two would see eye-to-eye on more now but not on everything. She would spoil the boys, and you would gripe but secretely smile about it. You would say to her, “If I’d done that, you wouldn’t have laughed!” She’d laugh because grandparents are just supposed to spoil their grandchildren, and she’d know that you really enjoyed seeing her love them so.
She was yours; you were hers. Consequently, she lives on through you. Feel her close and continue to feel her love even when you know you wouldn’t agree. Mothers like yours never completely leave their children.
I’m not your mother, Bo Williams, but I am proud of the man you have become.
Thank you so much, all. I feel your kind words deeply, and appreciate them.
Jan, that means so much to me. Thanks and hugs.
There are some wounds that never heal. And there are some bonds that are never broken.
Your mom will always be with you, Bo. Our loved ones never truly leave us.