We at the Forney Messenger try to write in a professional manner. I’m laughing under my breath as I type these words. I try. Really, I do, aiming to always be 3-4 weeks ahead with my columns. Yet, as with all things in life, sometimes I’m the absolute best. Sometimes, I suck. Here I sit, snuggled up tight to a deadline for a 5/6 column that can only be about one thing: 5/9, Mother’s Day. How simple, you might think. Just phone it in, you might mutter. After all, I’m a mom who’s fortunate enough to still have a mom. But, I’ve struggled all week with this topic. Moments ago, heralded in deep chested dog barks and a stampede of furry paws, the Amazon truck pulled up to make a Sunday delivery. 30 seconds of elation over the adult version of Santa Clause – what did they bring me – was quickly followed by the realization of what will be in the package. Suddenly, I understand why this column is so difficult to conceive. See, Monday is a special day, too. If my daughter were alive, she’d turn 30. The package on my porch is a box of 30th birthday decorations for the cemetery. I can’t write about Mother’s Day because I’m only ¾ of the mother I’m supposed to be.
Seasons of life can be challenging for bereaved parents, especially in these days of social media. Everyone’s lives look so perfect, so absent of failure and disappointment, so bright and shiny. It’s hard to sit back and see the posts from your lost child’s peer group. You watch them graduate. You watch them go off to college. You see the video snippets from their wedding receptions and the sneak peak ceremony photos. They have babies, right in front of your eyes. And, we are torn. We love these friends. We see so much of the child we miss in them. It’s difficult to avoid the comparisons. Where would my daughter be today? Would she be married? How many more grandchildren might I have been blessed with by now? Would she be a large animal vet in Colorado or a pediatrician in New England? This year, however, I’ve been watching all my daughter’s beloved friends turn 30. From the “dirty thirty” banners to the “RIP 20s” themed balloons to the costume parties, it’s a bitter pill to swallow. So, I do the only thing I know to do. I throw her a party… at a cemetery.
Being a mother has been the single most glorious yet devastatingly difficult thing I have done in this life. You never know if the love and independent armament you equip them with is enough. Once they become adults, the cherubic cheeks and delicate fingernail beds we painstakingly memorized all those years ago become a bit fuzzy. Did I love them enough? Did I cloister them so much that they won’t function well in this world? Did I coddle them enough? Did I allow them to struggle sufficiently? Parenting is a tightrope. One false step and everything could be ruined, or so we feel at times. Then, overnight, they grow up. Being a peer to your own child is quite the anomaly. Once we’re adults, after all, we look back on childhood with a slightly more critical eye. All relationships are complex. None of us are perfect. Far too abruptly, you realize that your own children are psychoanalyzing your decades old parenting style, just as you did to your parents. “The world was just so different when you guys were little,” you say. Then, you recall your own parents saying that same thing. So, we circle each other, all of us really just hoping we can hold it together through the tense toddler years, the raging hormonal tween years, and the rebels with firm causes years. Where we once spewed rage over broken lamps, broken curfews, and broken sound barriers, we wake up one day craving a little less perfection, a tad more action, and a little more noise. Where did it all go, we wonder. How did it all end so quickly? What is to become of us now?
Later today, I’ll meander over to my daughter’s resting spot. There are 3 balloons, zero balloons, banners, and bright pink flamingos to display. Afterward, I’ll sit on the ground, inevitably cry a little bit (who am I kidding – I will cry tremendously). I do this thing where I talk to myself but out loud, as if I’m trying to talk to her but unsure, still after 13 years, if this is how it’s supposed to work. I’ll say aloud that I hope I did enough. I’ll tell her I loved being her mother more than the moon and stars. I’ll tell her I miss being best friends with her and sharing all our clothes. I’ll tell her that everything good I do in this life is for one purpose only – so that I can see her again. I’ll tell her I will always be her mother. Happy Mother’s Day. God bless us, everyone.
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