Today is my mother’s birthday.
She would’ve been 70 years old had she not passed away back in 2007.
When my mother died, she was just 57 years old. Far too young. Every year since then has felt like another tragedy for me.
Every year still felt far too young.
Even 70 feels far too young to be gone. She never met either of my children or witnessed any of my books being published or watched me perform onstage.
She barely got to know Elysha. I’ve always felt bad for Elysha for never enjoying the blessings of a mother-in-law.
They say that dying is hardest on the living. Tell that to a mother who is about to miss the chance to meet her grandchildren or see her son’s dreams come true or spend real time with her beautiful, brilliant daughter-in-law.
I’ve wondered for years how old my mother would’ve needed to be before I’ll stop thinking of her absence as such a tragedy.
That day has not come.
The craziest thing about my mother’s death is that she’s been gone for 13 years, but there are still days (including last week) when I see something in a store that I know she would’ve liked and think, “I should get that for Mom’s birthday.”
That fraction of a second between thinking of your mother as a living person and remembering that she’s dead is a terrible bit of time.
It’s always hard when a parent passes away. My father-in-law’s mother recently passed away at the age of 98, but it was still hard for him.
There’s nothing like losing a parent.
It becomes even harder when you lose your mother but almost all of your friends’ parents are still alive and well. There’s that constant reminder of your loss, of course, but then there are the inadvertent questions and comments, like this past December, when a friend was complaining about how difficult her mother can be around the holidays and then asked, “What’s your mom like around the holidays?”
She felt awful, of course, especially because she knew me when my mom died, but that was 13 years ago.
It’s not something you’re expected to remember.
That might be the hardest part of losing a parent. Every year, without fail, my mother’s birthday and the anniversary of her death arrive on the calendar, and these are always sad days for me, but my sorrow is often solitary with the exception of Elysha. While my friends and family care deeply about me, they can’t be expected to keep track of these dates.
Am I supposed to remind them? That would be strange, too.
So you grieve quietly and alone. You might be walking around the workplace with a heavy heart, but you can’t exactly stop your colleagues in the hallway and explain.
It’s as if empathy has an expiration date when it comes to the death of your mother, not because your friends and family don’t care, but because they simply don’t know. And even if they knew, it was more than a decade ago. What are they really expected to say?
About five years ago, I was telling my students about the death of my mother. It was the first time that a batch of kids was learning about her passing. It’s a subject that comes up every year with my students. Someone asks a question about my mother, or someone loses a grandparent or pet, and we end up discussing the grieving process. Inevitably, my mother’s death arises.
The kids are always kind, but five years ago, something different happened.
In answer to a question about my mom, I took a deep breath and said, “My mother died about ten years ago.”
I’ll never forget what happened next.
Instantaneously and spontaneously, without any preplanned coordination or communication, two of my students – two of my most emotionally fragile students – rose from their seats on opposite sides of the classroom, walked across the room, and hugged me.
It was the purest expression of empathy over my mother’s death that I had experienced in a long time. It was as if she had died on that day, and the kids were responding to her passing for the first time.
It was as if that expiration date on empathy had been torn away.
I think about those two kids – a boy and a girl – on days like today. I remember their embrace and the tears that spilled from their eyes and mine.
Children are amazing. On this day when I am away from my students because of the coronavirus, I find myself missing them more than ever.
