A few days ago it occurred to me that this week is fifty years since my mother died. I mean, this shouldn’t have surprised me – I know how old I am, after all. But despite noting the anniversary date each year, time goes on. You don’t necessarily think of how long it has actually been, with every anniversary. Also, my dad and I used to always speak on the day, whether he called me or I him. It wasn’t an emotional call. It was more just a quiet acknowledgement. And perhaps, a reassurance to the other that at least, we were still here.
In perspective
My perspective of her death has changed over time, of course. She died when I was very young. I understood she died, understood her illness, I had these concepts. But when she died, I had really only known her as my mother. My little five-year old’s heart didn’t conceive of her as anything else. Obviously as I grew older I imagined her at her other ages, and in other roles, her first jobs, her falling in love with my dad, her private aspirations and passions. As I got older, my heartache was not for what I had lost, but for what she had.
Fifty years feels like a long time. When you get married, or have a child, or hit other milestones, you miss the loved ones you’ve lost; one might say, especially your mother. Difficulties are confronted without her, joys are celebrated without her.
I now feel so far beyond the age she had the opportunity to live to, I sometimes wonder how she might perceive me. Would her perspective be that of a 32-year-old? It is an odd thing to contemplate (and probably pointless).
It’s natural
Years ago I was seeing a therapist, and I mentioned to her that some of my friends thought I spent too much time dwelling on death. I explained to her it wasn’t so much a dwelling on death. It was a feeling that it was always present, and therefore, I felt a need to try and understand it. She laughed, and said it was perfectly natural for me to contemplate such things, as I’d lost the most important person in my life at such a young age. She said it would actually be more concerning if I didn’t think about it.
I don’t dwell on it. Rather, I remember it, remember her, and especially on an anniversary like the fiftieth year, I feel a need to honor her with more intention than many other years. I still have some of those old questions born in childhood – where did she go? Is she still around, is she truly gone, is she watching over us, is she at peace…? I am more of a skeptic than I used to be, though the hospice nurses who cared for my dad certainly opened my heart to the possibility again that there is something more beyond death, some kind of continuation of the soul. I heard remarkable stories from their personal as well as professional lives, that gave evidence of something beyond this life.
A reaching out
At fifty years, if she is still around somewhere, even just an awareness of soul, I hope she knows that for fifty years she has always still been loved deeply, and missed terribly. She is remembered, thought of often, and held dear within our hearts.
~ Nellie
image: the photo is of her and me, when I was just a toddler, several years before she died
