You know how you hear people talk about how they always remember where they were when they heard President Kennedy was assassinated? Or when the space shuttle Challenger exploded? Or on September 11, 2001? I remember vividly 2 of those 3 things.
But, I will always remember April 21, 2016 because it’s the day my mom died. Even though people tell you that losing a parent is one of the hardest and most stressful things you’ll experience in life, they can’t truly ever prepare you for that gut-wrenching feeling of helplessness, grief and finality when you get the word. It completely takes your breath away.
It’s Mother’s Day as I write this and I can’t think of a better thing to be doing than paying tribute to my own sweet mama. I sat down with Eric shortly after her death to write her obituary for the newspaper and really struggled because it didn’t allow me to say all that I wanted to. It was a too-brief synopsis of a life well lived, but didn’t even scratch the surface of who she truly was or what she meant to people who knew her. Since her death, I’ve received so many cards from people listing her attributes, or sharing a funny story about their adventures with her….some I’ve heard many times, and others I’d forgotten over time. One of my best childhood friends sent me a card with her favorite Jane memories….”her love of Doritos, her beautiful, muscular calves, her jamming-out to ‘New York, New York’ in the station wagon, and her laugh.” Another friend described her as the “cool”mom that all the kids wanted to be around. Each of those things brought a tear to my eye and and smile to my face. It’s been 30+ years since some of those things happened, and yet my sweet friends somehow knew it was exactly what I needed to hear in order to remember the vibrant person that was my mom, and move through the grief of her death.
My mom had more friends than anyone I’ve ever known. Throughout her life she had so many different groups of ladies that she spent time with. As I dig back through pictures, it’s evident why….the woman was F-U-N!! I’ve gathered a collection of pictures from each stage of her adulthood. There are some of her as a newlywed, some as a new mom, some golfing and playing, and some in her too-short golden years. The constant in all of them though is that she is surrounded by smiling people. I know, I know…everyone smiles when they are having their picture taken. Not like this; it’s the largest most genuine smile there ever was. Her friends clearly loved being around her….they golfed, they traveled, they partied.
I became one of those lucky friends after the tumultuous teenage years and well into my late twenties. We learned to enjoy each other’s company as I discovered the woman she was and she forgave the teenager I had been. We golfed in many a tournament together, even winning a few. She taught me the fine art of cocktailing….one of my first alcoholic beverage orders was an amaretto sour. She apologetically looked at the waiter shaking her head and said “amateur.”
Jane was mostly still “well” when I started dating John and only began to show real signs of decline as we approached our wedding. She loved John, and more so you could tell that she was happy I found a partner that was….you guessed, it…FUN. Although she would never say in in real time, each time I would end a relationship, she would say how she thought that particular boy was b-o-r-i-n-g. Jane and Larry had enormous amounts of fun together, and each of them told me how important that was when choosing a partner and nurturing a marriage. They spoke often of the importance of a common interest, and for them it was golf. When John came along, she loved that he played golf and it was a bonus that he was adept at her other favorite pastime, partying. The story of when John visited Jane and Larry to ask for my hand in marriage is legendary. I am pretty sure they knew exactly why he was inviting himself over for dinner, as we’d been dating a little over a year and I was nowhere in sight. As the story goes, it took him quite a while to summon up the courage to deliver his speech, and in the meantime they introduced him to Bombay Gin in the form of martinis. I can just picture Jane sitting there, relatively sober and laughing to herself as John dissolved into a puddle of gin and olives. In the end, he asked, they were ecstatic (I think) and gave their blessing. The hangovers were epic.
As Jane’s sharp and witty mind began to fail her, she spent less and less time doing the things she enjoyed, and seemed stuck in a constant state of anxiety. I watched her morph into a person I barely recognized, and I’m sad to say I sometimes avoided spending time with her. It devastates me to actually type those words, because I’d give anything to change that now. As it became clear what was happening to her, I took the sadness, regret, anger and various other emotions and put them into a box. I tucked that box away into a corner of my mind and rarely opened it. I was busy as a new wife, a new mom, and used those things to avoid thinking about what was really happening to her. I missed my mom, but because she was in a “transitional” state between this life and the next, the grief was something I put off….something I would deal with later. Life went on with an occasional trip to visit her, frequent conversations about how she was doing, and stories and memories of her.
It’s now July August September as I finish writing this. I can’t say whether it was tortuous or therapeutic. A little of both I suppose, but also necessary for my grieving I can tell you with certainty that grief is a process. Those raw emotions from those first days are dulled. But, even now a few months later, out of nowhere, the realization that she is gone will wash over me like a huge, dark tidal wave. When it happens, I fight back the tears and work hard to focus on those memories of her.
It’s ironic I suppose that the memories of her that I hold so dear are the same things that failed her. I often wonder if those same snippets of life played over and over in her mind as if they were a movie reel. Was she able to access the favorite parts of her life, or were they locked away in a part of her mind riddled with dementia? I hope the former is true, because as I said before, it was a life well lived. I wish she could have seen me as a mom and how much I enjoy it, or better yet as a woman in my forties, calm and content with who I am, thanks largely to her. She could have added those memories to her movie reel, because I know she would have loved them.
I spend a large amount of time “making memories for my children” as they say. The truth though is that the memories aren’t for them….they are for me. Quite often, I’ll see an Internet link or a TV news story about breakthroughs in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease, and I stop whatever I am doing to read, listen and hope. With all of my being I hope they’ll find a way to prevent or cure this cruel condition, because it’s a fate that might lie in my future. So, these memories I create with my friends and family are my way of filling up my own movie reel….just in case. One thing’s for sure, it’s a blockbuster.
I miss my mom like crazy. I know she’d like reading what I wrote about her. If I had one more perfect day with her, we’d finish a round of golf (under par), enjoy a gin martini (or two) on a patio in the Vail Village. She’d impart her wisdom and love on me and I’d soak it in. It would be glorious.
XOXO