Mother’s Day is this weekend and if I could skip this weekend I would. My mother died when I was 16 and Mother’s Day and the lead up to it has always been an awkward period for me to navigate. For the most part, I can move through life without having to publicly acknowledge that my mother is dead. It is very seldom that people ask the question (other than doctors and then it is a clinical question), therefore I don’t have to deal with the awkward moment afterwards where the person is embarrassed to have asked or the emotions that the question brings to the surface.
One thing that I’m realizing more and more is that my mother died when I was 16 but my need for a mother didn’t magically stop then. I’ve created various coping strategies to navigate through life without a mother but ultimately that is a definite void in my life. When I have a problem, I can’t call my mother to ask for advice or just to have her talk it through with me. When I have a tremendous accomplishment, I can’t call her first to share the news. I have family and friends that I do call but they are a poor stand-in through no fault of their own, they’re just not my mother.
A mother’s memory of you begins long before you are actually born. To a mother, you are that first fluttering sensation that she feels in her womb. You are the frightened (or excited) face she leaves behind on the first day of school or daycare. You are the victorious kid who rode the bike without training wheels or a guiding hand – and most importantly, without falling. To your mother you are the sum of all of the periods in your life, not just who you are today. It is from that perspective that a mother is able to offer reassurances about problems and congratulations for accomplishments that no one else is able to provide. I wish I had that.
On the flip side of this, I wish I knew my mother better. My only view of her is as my mother, however she had hopes, dreams and disappointments as a person and I don’t know those either.
I’ll close this by saying that I miss having a mother on days good and bad. That’s from the external 35 year-old me and the internal 16 year-old me as well.