It’s 8:30pm on a Saturday, just before Christmas, and you just got home from work. There are extra cars parked outside of your house, and you smile because you know that your family has decided to visit your mom, who has been bed-ridden for a few weeks now. Today, the hospice nurse told you that she won’t live until Christmas. This is why your family is here. To say goodbye to the person you love most. As you approach the front door, something changes in the air. And then it hits you: sadness. You can smell the salty tears lingering in the air and you know that the end is coming. So you muster up everything you have and turn the knob to your front door. Hours later, your mom passes away surrounded by only you, your dad, and her best friend, while everyone else is out getting some air. Here, alongside her hospital bed, you collapse for the first time.
Planning the funeral is a blur, but it’s so vivid at the same time. It didn’t feel like you were planning your mother’s funeral, just a regular family function. It still didn’t seem real when you received sympathies or gave her eulogy. You even held it together during the funeral, while your dad sat beside you crying. The only time you cried was when the priest made you stay and say a prayer in the back of the church while you carried out your mom’s ashes. You even picked the most heart-wrenching and personal favorite song to end, because you thought that you would have already walked out. The crying inside the church is just so… loud.
Nothing seems real at the luncheon, except that fact that you are surrounded by family and your best friends, who make you laugh. There is no evidence of sadness, except for everyone being in black. Everything seems so normal… except your mom isn’t here.
Sometimes you miss her in tidal waves, like when you started the first day of the semester, or when you celebrated having your license for a year, or when you finally dumped that crappy boyfriend you had. Other times, you miss her in fragments: how she sang a lullaby to you every night until you were nine; how you both only ate your popcorn with m&m’s; how she was there for every single sports game, cheering you on, even though you were the worst player on the team; how you belted out in the car singing “Landslide,” which will forever be your song. Simply put, you miss every single thing about her. The good, the bad, and the ugly: you would take it all in, just to have her again for a day.
The cancer killed your mom before she even took her last breath. Her memories had faded, her speech was severely impaired, and she didn’t eat anymore. She didn’t want you to see her like this, but she knew that you wanted to care for her, up until the last second; even when she passed away, she was wrapped in your arms. She didn’t get to record the family stories so you could listen to her, years later. She didn’t even get to see you finish your first semester of college. There are a lot of things that she had missed out on.
Today, there are even more things that she isn’t around for. She won’t be around for when you have your first date with your future husband, or when you graduate college and move on to start your Master’s degree, or when you find out you’re pregnant with your first son. You will not have you mother with you on your wedding day. But that’s okay, because you’re nineteen and single. Right now, you and your dad fight about what you’ll cook for dinner and how you never do your laundry.
Today, you sit in your room, late at night, and look at the dozens of scrapbooks you made together. You cry. You embrace all the memories, because they make up your mother. The photos you have strung up on your bedroom walls, because you’re terrified of forgetting what she looked like. The voicemails you saved and recorded so that you can hear her voice on the days you forget. Her favorite perfume, so when you wear it, you can almost feel her next to you.
You don’t “get over” losing your mother. You simply learn how to honor her memory and live your life with her in your heart. It’s damn hard, and some days are harder. Just keep in mind that you aren’t alone, and she is always with you.
