Dear Mom,
My first Mother’s Day without you. It’s been 6 months of “firsts,” none of them good. I turned 40 feeling more lost than ever because you were supposed to be here to help celebrate that milestone. Your leaving wasn’t in my plan. There’s still so much I want to share with you, so many things I would have told you had I known that I’d never see you again when I left you standing on the sidewalk last August.
My stomach lurches when I pass a display of Mother’s Day cards. I have no verses to give you, but I have a well-worn, faded magazine clipping you sent me decades ago. It’s a poem called “Only Violets,” and upon reading it all those years ago, I finally realized that you were more than my mom. You were a woman whose dreams and wishes went unfulfilled, despite the fact that you weren’t asking for much. Only violets.
Had I known you were leaving, I’d have told you I was sorry for that one time when you wanted me to walk on your back and I refused because I was mad at you. “Please,” you begged. And I wouldn’t. Your pain meant nothing to me at that moment of great and regrettable childishness. Doesn’t matter that I’d walked on your back a hundred times to help relieve your pain; what I remember now is that one time I didn’t.
Maybe I’d have admitted how much it hurt me when you didn’t come to my wedding, or visit me for the births of my children. Or come to my side when my baby died. What I did say each time was “It’s OK, Mom.” But it wasn’t, not really. I wanted you to share in my big moments, those both glorious and damning. I needed you to hold my hand and tell me it wasn’t my fault my son died; coming from you, I might have believed it. There were many times I needed you, and you weren’t there.
But oh, those times you were. When we didn’t have the money to buy a gown for the Homecoming dance, and you made mine. I was so mad I had to have a homemade dress, but on the night of the dance, I felt like the most beautiful girl there. Had you been more skilled with the camera, we’d have photos of that dress. What we got instead were numerous pictures of your eyeball, up close and distorted.
And when you’d take care of stray animals we’d find and bring home. Remember when Mark—strong, mouthy Mark—brought home that injured bird, cradled in his big hands? He’d missed the school bus and was crying like a baby. “Fix him, Mom,” he said, his face broken with grief. And you did. And to this day, I treasure that moment as the one I realized my brother had a tender heart.
You taught me that being kind to people is not an option by making me play with Evie, the neighbor girl with Down Syndrome. She was twice my size and didn’t talk in ways I could understand. I begged you not to make me go to her house. “She’s lonely, Becky. She has no friends,” you’d remind me. So off I’d go, shaking with trepidation because I’d seen Evie get mad, and did she have a temper. But she could make perfect circles on her Etch-a-Sketch, and I thought that was amazing. I always left her house feeling like a better person than when I walked in.
When Dad left us the first time and I found out about it by reading the note he’d left, I was heartbroken. But you didn’t tell me everything was going to be all right. In anger, you told me that’s the way it is, and you were sorry. And I knew you were. And even then, despite wanting to have my concerns alleviated even if by false reassurances, I appreciated your honesty and drew strength from it. Years later, when Dad left for good, I wasn’t weakened or distraught; I knew we’d get through and beyond those initial difficult days. And we did, with laughter mingled among our resentment.
Your mental illness molded my personality. I was able to make people think I was carefree when inside I was screaming until no sound would come. You lied to manipulate and control the world around you, and I know now that there was no malice in your behavior. I wasn’t your enemy, but oh, to a 16-year-old girl who’s just trying to figure out who she is, those lies felt like white-hot knives going through my back. And there were so many of them, Mom. So many. As a result, being lied to is the one thing I can’t abide. I can get past nearly any other transgression, but not that.
When Max was 2, he told me that stars are the souls of children waiting to find the right parents. When I asked him why, if that’s so, some children choose parents who are abusive, neglectful, or otherwise less than desirable, he replied, “Because they need to learn lessons from them.” I never clarified if he meant it was the parents or the children who needed to learn; it never mattered. But the longer I live, the more I believe him. And if he’s right, then I chose you.
And even knowing what I know now, I’d choose you all over again. Because from you I learned the value of perseverance, humor, generosity. I watched you pick yourself up and start a new life from scratch, one filled with more love and personal achievement than the first one ever had the capacity to give. I watched and I learned. And I promise never to forget.
Thanks, Mom, for teaching me that love doesn’t have to be perfect to be real.