Dear Mom,
How did you raise me to respect myself and love myself? Do you know how many people don’t? How was I one of the lucky ones? What did you do that was different than other mom’s? Is it because you were dying and you knew the importance of time more than anyone else? What if you weren’t dying throughout my childhood? What would have happened than? Who would I be today? How would I have turned out? Where did my resilience come from? Who gave it to me? You? Probably.
I never wanted you to die, I need to get that straight. I never wanted dad to die either.
But I’m scared to know what my life would look like if you didn’t die.
From the earliest of ages, I knew I didn’t have a choice whether you had cancer or not or that dad had MS or not. Death was a normal topic at home – like “what’s for dinner?” is normal in most homes. Like graduations, marriage and grandchildren is impending in most homes; your death was impending in our home. Death was impending on our trips to Duluth, in the car, while mowing the grass, baking Christmas cookies, at the library, while showering, etc. Long before you died, I knew my college graduation was going to be a motherless one and then you missed my 16th birthday by one day so my high school graduation was motherless too. Your journal proves your realism when you wrote: I just want to make it to see Travis start college, Taylor graduate high school and Breanne get her license. I was the only goal you missed. I also knew dad wouldn’t be alive to meet my children – much less you be around – but I had the wishful hope that he could wheel me down the aisle on his lap on my wedding day. I guess some things just suck but, yet, I’m still not sure I would change it.
Not changing it means you and dad would still have to suffer. Not changing it means you and dad would still have to die. Not changing it means bald heads, chemotherapy, hospitals, medical bills, colostomy bags, catheters, Hospice, wheelchairs, aggravation, humiliation, frustration, tears, funeral planning, cremation, picking out your plot and headstone for you and dad… And, yet, I’m still not sure I would change it.
What would holidays and birthday’s be like? Imagining your house full of 5 grandchildren, diapers and pack-and-plays seems like such a dream. Would you buy your grandchildren gifts that I asked you not to get? Would you be one of those grandmas!? I think you would. I can hear you saying, “Oh relax Breanne. It’s just a drum set, not a gun.” Would you get on the floor and play with Nollie? Run through the sprinkler with her? Surprise Nollie with lunch at school? Send her “penpal” letters in the mail? What would you think of Kaden!? His size?! The presence of dad that he carries? And I would love to know which one you think will inherent their father’s traits: Tanner or Makayla? What would you think of KayKay’s sass and “mothering?” Would she remind you of me when I was little? And Tanner, I already know his gentle heart would win you over. I think he’d be your favorite, but of course, you wouldn’t have favorites. I would give so much to see you hold precious Arianna, your 5th grandchild, and tell Travis how much she looks like her mother, just to push his buttons.
It’s a big deal that you’re not around. It’s a big deal because you have five beautiful grandchildren that will never know their amazing, liberal, crazy jewelry wearing, self sufficient, powerfully presenced grandma. These families that Travis, Taylor and I have created…maybe they wouldn’t be our families today if you were alive. And so, that is why I wouldn’t change you and dad’s deaths.
Would we sit at the table and discuss religion and politics? I think we would. We would sit at your kitchen table and I would think you are wise and bold and your thoughts are beautiful, and I think you’d think the same of me. It’s hard to imagine the little things, the day to day things that we would do if you were still alive: the last minute coffee dates, day trips to Duluth, organizing family dinners (“What should I bring? How early should I arrive?”), the frantic phone call asking you to pick up Nollie at school because I am late (and you so happily oblige and take her for a Dairy Queen blizzard), the frequent weekly stops that I make at home without calling, the hugs.
Hugs. I can’t feel those from you anymore. But what I can feel, is the way I used to rest my head on your lap when we sat on the couch together and your hand, always ice cold, rubbing the hair off my forehead until all my hair was a wave of golden brown across your lap. When you were finished, your hand would rest across my chest and I would hold it with both of my hands. These are happy moments that fill my eyes with tears. I still wish I could feel your hugs.
I don’t like that my life goes on without you because it’s hard to know I’m a happy person, even when you’re gone. It’s called guilt. I feel the guilt creep up on me every once in awhile…it’s a slow creep but when it hits, it hits hard. My guilt is like a bottle of maple syrup – I wait and wait for it to come and when it does, it’s a flood of unwanted sticky shit. My guilt comes from the idea that I should be unhappy or miserable without you – and I’m not. I don’t like that I only had you for 16 years of my life. It’s the one thing I can honestly say I loathe about my life. I feel robbed of a mom because a mom is a mom to their daughter even when she’s 25, even when she’s 65. Those who are lucky enough to still have mother’s at 65, would have had their mother 49 years longer than me. To imagine having a mom at 65 is like imagining being able to receive a text message from you when you’re dead. It’s unfathomable.
The most painful of all thoughts though: A mom is a mom even when her daughter has a daughter of her own. It’s a big deal that you and dad died because I have missed seeing you beam at my successes as a mother, a student, a lover, a friend, a sister, your daughter. It’s the biggest deal that you aren’t alive because my heart never got to melt at seeing your eyes stare into Nollie’s for the first time. But mom, I wouldn’t change it. I lost you, the most precious thing to me, but your life and death created me who wouldn’t be the me I am today without your death, and the me today created Nollie who I wouldn’t trade for all the tea in China.
I love you Mom,
Bre
