a post i never wanted to write.

how to write about the loss of the person you loved most in the world? how to quantify that loss, how to describe that person and do her justice? there’s nothing i can say about my mother that would explain what an amazing, amazing soul she was, no words that can even begin to shed light on the fullness of her beauty. it’s why i’ve never tried to write about her before – everything sounds so trite, so mundane. i could say she was selfless, but it doesn’t come close. i could say she was kind, but it doesn’t come close. i could say she was beautiful, but she was more beautiful than that word conveys. she was that rare person, the kind of woman that every man wants for a wife, every woman wants for a best friend, every child wants for a mother. there was not one mean bone in her body.

it’s true when i say that i would rather have had her as my mother for twenty-eight years than anyone else for fifty. but it’s also true that i feel robbed to have lost her so soon, when she was just discovering how to live her life for herself, and not for anyone else. you see, my mother spent her entire life taking care of everyone around her. she worked her fingers to the bone to make sure we had the best life imaginable, she took care of my dad for thirty years, even still packing his lunch when her hands were so shaky from the chemo that she could barely spread mayonnaise on the bread. but this was going to be HER YEAR. the year her baby, her last-born, graduated from high school and went off to college, and she could spend her days playing golf with the ladies at the country club, working in her vast gardens, traveling to see her new grandson, taking Sunday drives with her husband in his new convertible. this was going to be the year that she caught up on her reading, finally finishing that book about the children of Henry VIII, that she was going to see afternoon matinees alone with a large buttered popcorn, that she was finally going to clean out that basement. she wanted to try her hand at painting, and bought a book of botanical illustrations that she was going to try and copy with an easel set up in the back garden.

i feel robbed on her behalf. as sad as i am for myself, i’m sadder for her – that this evil disease robbed this beautiful woman of her year, her joy. i’m sad for my son, who will never be able to have her as a grandmother. she would have been a kickass grandmother. and of course, i cry for myself, going into this great unknown of motherhood without my own mother. to lose her two weeks into my own experience has been heartbreaking. i took a picture of leo yesterday, fresh out of the bath in a tiny kimono robe, and immediately thought “i’ve gotta send this to mom”. 

i pray that leo can’t sense my grief, that he doesn’t taste the fat salty tears that fall onto his cheek while he nurses at my breast, that my wails don’t taint him with sadness for the rest of his life. i can almost hear my mom admonishing me – “katharine margaret! get off that couch and wipe those tears and TAKE CARE OF THAT BABY!” and that’s just what i’ll do, because i know in my heart that this small boy will be the one to pull me out of this, that he’ll be the one to save me.

i’m not sure that i believe in heaven, or signs, or communication between worlds, but i am looking everywhere for proof that she’s still with me. yesterday was day five since losing her. in my grief, i pulled up all of her old text messages on my phone, and when i clicked “load earlier messages”, the first one that popped up was from December 5 of last year, five days into her cancer treatment. a simple message from her to me, it said “day five   i miss you”. 

i miss you too, mom.