Dear Mom,
It’s Mother’s Day. I have dreaded this day for so long. The
countdown to Mother’s Day with the commercials, the cards, the social media
posts talking about what people want to do for Mother’s Day.
It is so hard to think about brunch and flowers and handmade
crafts, when the only thing I want is for you to be back here.
The only solace I have is that I know you want that too.
--
Last Mother’s Day was SO fucking hard. None of knew exactly
when you were going to die; but we all knew it would be your last.
When I pulled up to the house, after crying on my entire
drive up, I found Jennifer sitting in her car, also crying.
How were we supposed to face this last Mother’s Day with
you? It was so hard for all of us to comprehend that all future Mother’s Days
for the rest of our lives wouldn't have you in them.
I know it was hard for you, too. You knew.
Of course you knew.
We normally would go for pedicures, massages, or something
fun together like that. Because you were past the point of traveling, I decided
to bring the spa to you.
I knew you would enjoy getting a pedicure, but more than
that, I knew I would enjoy giving you a pedicure.
Towards the end of your life, any obvious attempts at us
trying to hold on or getting upset would upset you, and when you were upset,
you struggled to breathe; so we always had to get creative.
That hour plus I spent massaging your legs, feet, and just
making you feel relaxed, I will always treasure.
But I will admit – it was HARD.
There were moments where you closed your eyes, clearly
relaxed, and I let a few tears roll down.
How could it be possible that you were going to die?
I was desperate to keep you.
And now, I am desperate for you to come back.
Jennifer took photos of us, which I will always treasure.
With the exception of the photos I took of me holding your hand after your
died, they would be our last photos we would ever take together.
Of course, neither of us knew that.
As we are rapidly approaching a year without you, it is
impossible not to reflect on this time last year.
The end was hard. It was rough, and painful, and
excruciating, and exhausting. For all of us.
I think back now, and I am so angry at myself for not
spending every single day with you last spring. I wish I could go back in time
and tell that person sitting on the floor massaging your legs, that she only
had a little over a month left with her Mom. Do not squander the time.
I know we all did the best we could given the circumstances,
and hindsight is 20/20. But I can’t help but feel just…so sad and angry I wasn’t
more present.
 |
| Your very last time outside |
In part, I know it was because I didn’t want to face it. I
didn’t want to believe it. I mean, I knew you were going to die, I just couldn’t
truly wrap my mind around it.
You were sick for almost four years. It was hard to be
honest with myself with how little time you had left.
I just didn't want to accept reality.
How was I going to do this life without you?
It is a question, nearly a year gone without you, that I
still ask myself.
All the time.
There are times I feel hopelessly broken without you. Like part
of my insides are gone.
Maybe they are.
I decided to scroll through the photos from Mother’s Day
last year, and from the last few weeks of your death. I am so glad I continued
to document and photograph those moments.
There were photos were I could so clearly see you were
struggling to breathe. They made me feel so bad that I couldn't – or wouldn't –
allow myself to see it then.
What struck me most of all the photos, were your smiles in
the Mother’s Day photos in the candid photos. I had never noticed them before.
But in the non-posed photos, there it was…a smile.
It pierced me.
I thought, “Look,
there was joy.”
Sometimes it is hard to remember if there was any joy those
last few weeks.
I know there is never enough time. We always want more. We
always do our best that we could. I just wish I could go back and hug you more,
linger longer.
It is an ache and a pain that I don’t know how to fix. I
told Jennifer that I hoped you knew, and she said you did.
I told her that I just want you to come back.
I am just desperate to see you.
There are days where I swear you are about to bound through
my door, in your old healthy body, open my door wide and say, “Kimby, I am
here!”
I so wish that would happen.
So you could come to my house and sit with me on the lawn
and soak up the sun like you loved to do.
I fractured my knee a few weeks ago. I am in a full leg
brace and can do very little on my own.
I can’t drive.
I can barely get up and down our stairs.
And can do very little in the house.
It has caused me to have so much more compassion and
sympathy for what you must have gone through. And of course, my situation is
only temporary, and I can still talk.
I just feel so fucking sad and bad that maybe wasn’t as
patient enough with you as I could have been. Or should have been.
And for that, I am sorry.
I am sorry I didn’t spend every waking minute with you
towards the end.
I am sorry I couldn't reach deeper this time last year.
--
As I sit writing this, I am listening to your memorial
service music. Because that was clearly a good idea.
As Bette Midler’s, “Wind Beneath my Wings” came on I lost
it. Not just because the song is sad as fuck, but because Beaches was one of
our very favorite movies we always used to watch growing up.
We always did everything together, and I remember feeling so
afraid that you might die and leave me. I remember a few times saying
something, and you telling me that you weren’t going to die for a long, long
time.
I have always had a fear of living without you. It was the
absolute worst thing I could think of happening to me.
I never thought I would be able to continue on without you.
I couldn’t imagine a world without you in it.
In the show, “The Queen” there is a scene where Winston
Churchill is recounting the story of coming home to find his wife standing over
their young daughter who had just died, and he said that she, “roared like a wounded animal.”
It is a quote that has stuck with me since I first heard it.
I have come back to it in my mind so many times. It is such an eloquent
expression of the depths of despair grief brings people to.
There are some losses that produce such an animalistic
reaction to the pain.
Sometimes there are no words that can communicate the depth
of pain.
A quote that has brought me great comfort over the last
almost year says it perfectly:
“Grief is the last act of love we can give to those we loved.
Where there is deep grief, there was great love.”
There have been so many times in the last 11 months since I
last saw you where I have roared like a wounded animal. There just is no other
way to describe it.
As I heard Bette bellow out the words in her song, I found
myself yet again, roaring like a wounded animal.
This pain, this life without you, it hurts. It is so hard.
There have been so many moments, this being one of them,
where I feel like I might die or explode with the pain of missing you and
living without you. Feeling like I can’t take another breath without you. And
each time, with astonishing predictability, I hear you so clearly:
“You have to.”
“You will be ok.”
In your eulogy, I recounted this story:
“A few days after we
found out my Mom had ALS in October 2013, I screamed and cried and begged and
tried to bargain with the universe from my parent’s living room floor.
I told her that I
couldn't do it without her, that there was no way I could get through my life
without her in it.
She sat on the floor
with me, put her hands on my face, brushed my hair out of my eyes and said:
You have to. You can’t
quit. You will get through this, together. And you have Jennifer and Michael.
You will be ok.”
If I am able to
get through this life without you in it, it is only because of you. You and
your love and your confidence in me that I can do it without you.
I am forever grateful that you are my inner voice.
“My Mom and I were not just
mother and daughter, but were also companions and friends.
We
would always go shopping together, up until she was no longer able to shop, and
would be gone for hours on end. We would pull up each time after a long
shopping adventure and predict that my Dad would say,
“Where
in the hell have the two of you been? Did you get lost?”
However,
for me, what will be perhaps the most difficult part of the loss of my Mom from
my life is not my shopping buddy, friend, or partner in crime, but the loss of
my soft-landing spot.
Through
the last decade+ of my extensive international travels and time living abroad,
I have been asked so many times how I do it.
It
is simple really:
I
always knew my Mom would be there to catch me should I ever need help.
She
would be the wind beneath my wings so to speak.
Whether
that came in the form of money when I ran out of it backpacking in Europe my
first time in college, or sending me care packages while in Korea, a place I
absolutely hated, or talking to me daily while in Korea at all hours of the day
and night, just to check in and make me feel better.
You
see, I have always been fiercely connected to my Mom.
I
cannot tell you how many times I have heard the stories from my Dad and
grandparents about how I would crawl, and later roam, around someone’s house
looking for her and crying if I had been dropped off for babysitting. Everyone hated
babysitting me, because I only wanted my Mama.
In
part because of my severe Mommy attachment issues, we developed an incredibly
close bond.
I
know that my being separated from her, whether it was for a move across the
world, or for my first time to overnight Girl Scout camp, was just as hard, if
not harder, on her than me.
Yet,
she was always tirelessly in my corner.
I
can remember in first grade, it was my first trip to girl scout camp. I didn't
want to go, but she told me I could do it, that it would be fun. She said to bring my security blanket, which
wasn’t actually a blanket at all, but instead was a baby winter bunting turned security
blanket, that my Mom had affectionately named “fluffy,” because as my Mom said,
“it was fluffy”, and that with that, I would be alright.
I
remember sitting in the back of the van, choking back tears as I waved goodbye.
It was something so incredibly hard for my little 6-year old self to do.
Many
years later, I found out she also choked back tears and cried on her way home.
12
years later, the situation would repeat itself again, except this time, when I
was leaving for college.
Granted,
I was only moving literally 11 miles down the road to the dorms, but it felt
like there would be an ocean between us.
Prior
to starting at UW, my high school boyfriend broke-up with me and my 18-year old
self was distraught.
I
decided I didn't want to live on campus anymore, I wanted to stay home with my
Mom.
I
was too broken, and it would be too hard, I concluded.
But
she told me that I could do it, and that she would be right up the road.
She
and my Dad helped me setup my room, and when it was time to go, I turned around
to wave goodbye, wiped away some tears from my face, and choked the rest away.
She smiled, waved and cocked her head to the side as if to say, “You've got
this.”
Her
outward stoic appearance gave me strength, and it belied her inner pain as I
years later found out that she cried on that ride home, too.
Even
though she could have selfishly said, yes, stay home, I don't want you to leave
– which is what I know she wanted to do –
she
didn't.
Instead,
she made me believe in myself that I could be strong.
So
when people ask how I have done it all, it is because I always knew I had her
in my corner, rooting me on. I could make a mistake, get scared, want to come
home, or whatever, and she would be there for me.
She
was strong, so I didn't have to be.”
Thank you Mom, for making me strong.
I couldn’t get through this without you.
--
I told Jennifer that I was going to spend today in
bed. I didn’t want to face the world today. She said that you wouldn’t want me
to do that. Feeling sorry for myself in my current broke ass - in mind, body,
and spirit -state, said I couldn’t do anything else anyways because of my cast.
She told me to spend the day in the sun in the yard, drinking wine, and eating
licorice, just like you would have wanted to do. She said you would also
probably be smoking, but to not do that, because that would probably a bad
idea.
 |
| The very last time you felt the sun |
Kimby
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