I’ve been wanting to write this post for a while now. And I’ve found myself thinking about my mom much more often over the past 2.5 years. But let’s get the back story first.
Let’s start from the beginning.
My mother passed away from cancer when I was 9 years old. I’m so fortunate to have the most wonderful father, aunt and friends’ mommies who have filled in and helped shape me to the woman and mommy I am today. I don’t talk about it often, but I really have prayed long and hard, and I am okay with these cards that G-d has dealt me. But things obviously come up over the years that would make having a mother, to hand hold, talk to and ask advice of, much easier.
Since I’m sure many of you will ask, yes, my father remarried a wonderful woman, Nancy, when I was in college. Nancy was exceptional. Probably the most selfless woman I’ve ever met. She never tried to be my mother. She was a friend, and a good one at that. Nancy also passed away when Miri was just 10 weeks old, after a TOUGH battle with cancer. I know what you’re thinking. “Her poor father!” “How tragic to lose 2 mothers!” “I’m hysterically crying right now!” Yes, yes. We’ve been through all those thoughts, and we’ve made it out on the other side. Our family is stronger and closer because of it, too. But this isn’t the point of my post, but you had to have some background. So let’s get to it.
Fast forward to 2015.
I found out I was pregnant with Miri in May 2015. LOTS of emotions there. I had just gotten married (in March 2015. Yes, you read that right.), so life was literally flying, and I had just found out probably the most life-changing news I would ever receive. My immediate thoughts were, “Who am I going to share this news with?” (other than Adam, of course) I imagine that most women automatically want to call their mothers on the phone to share the news. I think if I had been older when my mom passed away, I also would be one of those women whose minds jump to their mother at times like these. But since I was so young, I’ve had to make relationships in my life that “fill” that gap. So I immediately called up my best friend. Little did we know, Miri and Azi would be walking down that friend’s wedding aisle just a couple of years later.
All the gushy, feeling stuff.
If you’re asking how I feel about not being able to share moments like these with my mom? Well, honestly, I’m not very good at feeling when it comes to this topic. I used to think I had no emotion whatsoever, and then I got pregnant with Miri and BOOM! I cried at the drop of the hat. But being emotional about not having a mother? Well, it’s something that I’ve grown to think about and reflect upon WITHOUT letting the “lack of” get me down. Since it’s something that I can never change, I try to think positively and be grateful for the people I do have in my life.
There are certainly times throughout my journey in motherhood where I’ve noted that it would’ve been easier to have a mom. It would’ve been lovely to have someone to come stay and take care of me after I had a baby. Or a mom to call when my kids are being little a$$holes, and I need some advice. But I would say it’s the not being able to hear about my mother’s memories from when I was little that bothers me the most.
I hear all the time from my father and aunt about how Miri is just like me, but I feel like the memories that a mother has of her babies are often more clear and detailed than anyone else’s. And I would certainly benefit from those distant memories that are now gone with the woman who made them.
A memory alive.
Children as young as mine cannot possibly understand death, and I hope I never have to explain it to them again. But there has to be a way to keep the memory of my mother, their grandmother, alive within them. I have a picture of my mother and me right next to where I light the Shabbat candles every Friday night. We take it down and look at it often. I gave my mother a name for my children to refer to her by. Grandma Joyce. We point to “little mommy and Grandma Joyce” in the picture. We do the same with my stepmother, who we introduced to Miri as Nana before she passed.
When the kids are older, I hope to have more sophisticated conversations with them about their two grandmothers who they never had the privilege to know. I also hope to piece together my memories of my mother so that I can share stories with my children.
I would say that having lost my mother at such a young age made it easy for me to block out the sadness and forget so many characteristics and memories of her. It was just easier for me to deal with it that way. But becoming a mother has given me a different mindset. My thoughts of my mother have shifted. And I often think about her in a happy way, knowing that she would have loved to see the woman and mother I’ve grown up to be.
Looking ahead.
There are most definitely still areas of grief that I know, even 18 years later, I have not explored. But I know that through my children’s eyes, I now have the courage to seek answers about my mother, so we can all heal and incorporate the memories of Nana and Grandma Joyce into our daily lives.
Even though Miri and Azi, and any future children, won’t know two of their grandmothers, it’s my duty as their mother, daughter and stepdaughter, to ensure that the memories of these instrumental women are kept alive, even in their physical absence. They are the women who made and shaped the mother that I am today, and it’s important to me that my children hold a special place for them in their hearts.
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