June 23 was the 30th anniversary of my mother's death. She was only 49. I was 11, the youngest of her five children.
I've learned a lot from the defining event of my childhood, but it comes down to this: you never stop needing your parents.
A special welcome to anyone who is new to The Grieving Room. We meet every Monday evening. Whether your loss is recent or many years ago, whether you have lost a person or a pet, or even if the person you are "mourning" is still alive ("pre-grief" can be a very lonely and confusing time) you can come to this diary and process your grieving in whatever way works for you. Share whatever you need to share. We can't solve each other's problems, but we can be a sounding board and a place of connection.
Year 1
Although I saw my mother become sicker during 21 months of treatment for breast cancer, somehow her death still came as a shock. I remember realizing how bad things were when I was allowed to visit her in the hospital, a few days or perhaps a week before her death. Children under 14 were not normally permitted on that ward, and I had never been able to see her during previous hospitalizations.
The summer my mother died, my family muddled through. My father, my siblings and I stayed close to home. We went for long walks, we went swimming, we kept doing the things we used to do, except we also went to services every Friday night to say a special memorial prayer for my mother.
My friends said nothing to me about my bereavement. I remember asking another adult whether anyone had told my friends that my mother had died. He explained to me that they did know what happened, they just didn't know what to say. I felt relieved, because I didn't want to talk about it with them, but I dreaded having to tell people what had happened to my mother. I don't know whether I was ashamed, or whether I grasped quickly that telling people you didn't have a mother made them very uncomfortable.
I have a vivid memory of my sixth grade teacher telling our class that to fill out some form, she needed us all to answer the question, "Does your mother work?" She went down the class list in alphabetical order, and everyone was supposed to call out "yes" or "no." Panicking, I tried to figure out what to say when she called my name. She skipped over me when she got to my place in the alphabet.
My father hired a woman to baby-sit every day after school, even though I had a brother in high school who could have watched me. For that matter, at 11 I probably could have stayed by myself for an hour or two, but I was glad to have an adult around when I got home from school. She took me to piano lessons, chatted with me, did basic housecleaning and cooked supper for us all. I realized years later that my father was trying to protect me from feeling pressure to take on my mother's role in the house.
Before my mother died, I had become politically engaged as a supporter of John Anderson for president. My parents even brought me to the Republican presidential candidates' debate before the Iowa caucuses. I mostly tuned out of the 1980 general election campaign, however. My parents had a tradition of canceling out each other's votes, dating to their first year of marriage, when my father liked Ike and my mother was "madly for Adlai." I learned sometime during the 1990s that my father had secretly voted for Anderson instead of Reagan in November 1980. I don't know whether he simply didn't like Reagan or whether he couldn't cast that vote without my diehard Democratic mom around to cancel it out.
Year 2
Junior high school meant meeting a lot of new kids. I started developing a strategy for what to say when people who didn't know my family history asked simple questions about my mother. Fortunately, the teachers all knew about my loss beforehand, so I didn't face any awkward questions "in public."
Several women who had been my mother's friends reached out to me during this time. One of them invited me to help make desserts at her house. Another became my regular shopping companion when it was time to buy back-to-school clothes, new shoes or outfits for a special occasion. When you're bereaved, small acts of kindness become magnified in your memory. I invited those women to my wedding almost two decades later, though I hadn't seen them in years.
My bat mitzvah in the spring of 1982 was the dominant event of the year. My father helped me a lot with the preparations, and we scheduled the celebration for spring break weekend, so my four older siblings could be there. You would think that it would be crushing not to have my mother around for this milestone, but my memories of the bat mitzvah are overwhelmingly happy. When I pull out my old photo albums, my husband has commented that a stranger looking at my bat mitzvah pictures would never have guessed that my family had suffered a devastating loss so recently.
Year 3
I think the magic two-year mark for regaining equilibrium after a bereavement held true for my family. I had a strong group of friends at school and at summer camp. Sure, I had some down moments (Mother's Day was a drag), but I don't remember feeling overwhelmed by being the only kid I knew whose mother had died. My father and I were very close. We talked about school and daily life, but also politics and current events. He didn't talk down to me, although we often disagreed.
My father started dating, but fortunately from my selfish teenager perspective, he dated in another city where he frequently traveled for work. These women were not in my foreground, and I had a long time to get used to the idea of him seeing other women before I met one of his girlfriends.
Year 4
I had a smooth transition to high school. A lot of my teachers already knew my parents and my older siblings. I stayed close to my core group of friends from junior high, adding some new friends through the debate team and my favorite class.
I don't remember struggling a lot over my mother's absence during this time, but one thing that did bug me was when other kids would complain about their moms. Naturally, all teenagers do that sometimes, but it stung, and I think it made me keep a little mental distance from people who had intact families. I doubt it was a coincidence that my first boyfriend in high school had an unusual home situation. He lived with guardians, even though his parents were still alive. I never did get the whole story on that.
Year 5
I remember going through another wave of grief during this year. I don't remember any particular trigger, so probably adolescent hormones were responsible. Whatever the reason, I felt a lot more sorry for myself.
Other 15- and 16-year-olds were breaking whatever rules they could get away with, but I never went through the stereotypical teenage rebellion. I couldn't fight with or complain about my mother, because I had an idealized picture of her, and I didn't want to push back against my father. I think I knew subconsciously that he had really come through for me in my family's crisis, and he didn't need me to create additional stress for him. These feelings protected me in a way, because I never did the various stupid and dangerous things high school kids do.
Year 6
At 16 I started dating my "serious" high school boyfriend. We clicked on many levels--he was a smart, funny, cute guy. Looking back, I think I felt extra safe with him because his father had died a few years earlier. We didn't talk much about our parents' deaths, but we didn't need to.
Year 7
By the end of high school, I felt that I had fully accepted my mother's death. Although I still missed my mother every day and wished I could have asked her a million questions, I believed that I didn't "need" to have my mother to have a good life. In fact, I remember thinking that I would rather have the one parent I had than the two parents most of my friends had.
As our group went through the college application process, one of my closest friends was accepted to her top choice. Her jackass parents refused to pay for her to go to an out-of-state school. It wasn't for lack of money, because our freshman year in college, this same friend's parents bought a new Cadillac. They reasoned that Iowa colleges were good enough for my friend's older brother and sister, so they should be good enough for her. I was stunned that anyone's parents would stand in the way of their child's dream like that. My dad would have made major sacrifices, if necessary, to help me go to the college of my choice.
Year 8
Around this time I realized there was so much I didn't know about my mother. For instance, I knew that she loved college. She excelled academically, she was with her closest high school friends, and she met her future husband. But I couldn't remember hearing her talk about anything specific that happened in college, or what it was like the first year she lived away from her parents. I talked to my father often, mostly about my classes and my new friends, but I didn't feel comfortable asking him to tell me stories about my mother in college. Anyway, he didn't even know her when she was a freshman.
Year 9
At age 19 it occurred to me that as far as my conscious memories were concerned, I had lived as long without my mother as I had with my mother. That thought was deeply depressing. I also became more aware of my fears that I might die at a relatively young age, before my own future kids were grown.
A great-aunt passed away that year. After her funeral, one of her daughters told me her mother had always identified with me, because she was the youngest child in a large family and had lost her mother at age 9. In all the times we visited my great-aunt and uncle when I was growing up, she had never mentioned any of that to me. I wish we had had a chance to talk about it, and what it was like to raise her own family without her mother in the picture.
Year 10
I do not recall grieving deeply for my mother at this point in my life. I think I had reached an equilibrium again. It helped that my dad and I were still close and spoke frequently. He helped me through the usual college crises, like not having started the paper that was due the next day.
Year 11
Another milestone approached as I entered my final year of college. My life was so different from my mother's. At that age, she got engaged to my father and planned to become a teacher. I was planning a new adventure, going to graduate school abroad. I wonder whether she would have encouraged me to settle down, or whether she would have been excited about the opportunities I had. Probably she would have encouraged me to go to grad school, as my dad did. She was a passionate feminist.
Year 12
I don't remember any major steps in the grieving process during this year. My closest new friend in graduate school had a difficult family background, and her mother would qualify as a textbook "toxic" parent. When my friend would tell me about the latest crazy thing her mom had done, I would think to myself, I am so glad I had the mother I had, even if it was just for 11 years.
In the spring of 1992, my father remarried. Going to that wedding wasn't easy for my siblings and me, but I liked my stepmother and thought she was a good match for my dad. I have to admit, I feel grateful that my father didn't remarry while I was in high school, living at home. The extra distance made it so much easier to accept my stepmother.
Year 13
The major bereavement of this year was going through a horrible break-up. As regulars in The Grieving Room probably know, any loss tends to bring up unresolved feelings from losses in the past. Fortunately, the cloud lifted after a few dreadful months, in time for me to get to know the man who is now my husband.
Year 14
Having finished grad school, I came back to the U.S. for a job. It wasn't a good fit, but living in New York allowed me to see my father and stepmother much more often than I had in years. The most upsetting event of that time in my life was having most of my jewelry stolen one day while I was at work. Among other things, I lost a ring I'd gotten for my bat mitzvah and a necklace my dad gave me for high school graduation.
My grandmother on my father's side passed away after many years of poor health. Someone recalled after her funeral that she used to say she wished she could have died in place of my mother. I don't recall ever hearing her say that. She never had any daughters, but she adored my mother.
Year 15
I quit my job after nearly a year and started looking for work overseas, so I could live closer to my long-distance boyfriend. In the meantime, I came back to Iowa to volunteer for a gubernatorial campaign in the fall of 1994. I stayed in my dad's house, the house I grew up in, but it looked much different, because my stepmother had done extensive remodeling.
Living in the Des Moines area for the first time since high school, I came into contact with many people who had known my mother, old family friends as well as new acquaintances who recognized my surname. When these strangers would tell me something they recalled about my mother, I was touched that people still remembered her after so many years. At the same time, those conversations reminded me how much I had missed by never being able to have an adult conversation with my mother.
Year 16
I was in a better frame of mind by the 15th anniversary of my mother's death: living overseas again, adapting to a new culture, loving my new job, and getting to see my boyfriend every four to six weeks instead of every few months. My father and stepmother came to visit me during my first year in the city, which was fun. Naturally, it would have been more fun to share my favorite views and places with my mother.
Year 17
My father had a health scare during this year. My sister was worried, but I was surprised not to feel much fear about his condition. His underlying health was good, and I think psychologically I was not able to acknowledge any serious threat to his life. He recovered well, and I remember feeling glad he had my stepmother to help take care of him.
Year 18
This was a great year, and I don't recall struggling with grief in any significant way. I was working long hours but loving my job and my surroundings. My boyfriend was spending a sabbatical year with me after years of dating long-distance.
Year 19
A promising beginning: my boyfriend and I decided to stop being a long-distance couple. When his sabbatical was up, I quit my job and went back to grad school in the UK. We were adjusting to life in London, and my father was planning to visit for my 30th birthday. One of my brothers got engaged. My sister got married, wearing our mother's wedding dress. Then in January 1999 a freak accident ended my father's life.
Without question, the year that followed was the worst of my life. My father's death set in motion a painful chain of events for my siblings and me. My stepmother insisted on visiting me for my birthday (two months after the death), though she was frankly the last person I wanted to spend time with. She meant well, wanting to give me the present my father had already picked out for me, but I just felt like canceling my birthday. I lost all interest in my academic work and my freelance writing. I didn't try to make friends in my new city. Finding a good therapist helped a little, but the bottom line was, I did not want to be a person without parents. Having one parent was a major part of my identity, and I was completely unprepared for losing my father so soon. His doctor used to joke that he would live to be 100. His mother (my grandmother) lived into her 90s.
For the first time in many years, I felt intensely jealous of people my age whose parents were alive. There they were, going about their business, having no clue what it's like to have your family shattered. I mean, I was content to have just one parent. Why did the universe have to take that away from me, and in such a flukey way? I would go over and over the series of unlikely events that led to my father's accident, thinking of all the ways some tiny thing could have led to a different outcome. If I couldn't get my father back, I wished there was some magic way I could swap him out for my mother, so I could still have one parent.
While I was grieving for my father I often recalled a conversation I had had with a friend in college. His mother had died in a car accident his senior year of high school. I said losing a loved one in a random accident must be much harder--at least my mother had a chance to fight cancer, and I knew that there was nothing that could have saved her, given the technology available at that time. His take was that when you think about it, dying from cancer or any other disease is just as random as a car accident. Why did his mother have to be in the wrong intersection at the wrong time? Well, why did my mother have to have a cell that started dividing and wouldn't stop?
Year 20
When this year began, I was still at a low point following my father's death. I had made no progress in my graduate research and didn't see how I could follow through with a freelance writing commitment I had for the fall and winter of 1999/2000. Amazingly, though, the less bad days started to outnumber the really bad days, with some good days sprinkled in. As I battled through my freelance job, my interest in the subject matter returned. My boyfriend was now my fiance, and we started planning a wedding in my hometown the following year.
A great-uncle who had always been very close to my father developed liver cancer. I flew back to the U.S. for a cousin's bar mitzvah so I could see him one last time. Other people cry at weddings, but since that weekend I've never made it through a bar or bat mitzvah without crying. Seeing the proud parents with their son or daughter is tough for me.
Year 21
I'm not normally one to get hung up on specific dates, but the 20th anniversary of my mother's death coincided with a close friend's wedding weekend. I was one of her bridesmaids. She and her mother (an old friend of my parents whom I've known my whole life) had offered to put on a Sunday brunch for my wedding weekend. On June 23, 2000, my friend's mother sprung on me that my stepmother wanted to do something for my wedding, so she was going to co-host the brunch.
It was too much for me. Since sixth grade I had realized my mother wouldn't be there for my wedding day. I was struggling to cope with the reality of my father's absence for the celebration. Now my stepmother was barging in on my party. I called my fiance in the middle of the night and cried for ages. Later that weekend I took my friend's mother aside and told her that while I didn't desire to exclude my stepmother from my wedding festivities, I would prefer for her not to host an event for me. Looking back now, I feel a little guilty for hurting my stepmother's feelings when she was just trying to do something nice. For whatever reason, at the time I felt a boundary had been crossed without my consent.
The wedding itself a few months later went well. Stealing an idea from my sister, we displayed photos near the guest book from my parents' and my in-laws' weddings. I felt comfortable including my stepmother in the wedding photos and procession, with one of my brothers walking her down the aisle. I got a little teary at one point during the ceremony, when the rabbi, an old family friend, reminisced about my parents. But it was truly a joyous occasion, not overshadowed by my parents' absence.
Year 22
By the summer of 2001, I had found my equilibrium again. I no longer had trouble sleeping or searched for any excuse not to work on my dissertation. I missed not being able to talk things over with my father--news of the day, a chapter I was stuck on. But I was adjusting to the concept of having no parents.
Year 23
More big milestones: I finished my dissertation, and my husband took a sabbatical so we could move to Iowa, with a view to starting a family. Once we were back in town, I started frequently running into people who had known my parents. It had been years since I'd had daily contact with anyone who remembered them. As in 1994, the scattered memories I'd hear from family friends, business contacts, or casual acquaintances were very moving.
Our first child was born that year, and I struggled during the postpartum period without my mother available. My in-laws are wonderful and came to visit us twice, but I had so many questions I wanted to ask my parents. I had never done much babysitting, and hardly spent any time around babies before having one. In fact, I had never changed a diaper before my first child's birth.
Others could help me learn to take care of a baby, but I wanted to know what I was like as a baby, what it was like for my parents to take care of me, things they wouldn't have changed and things they wished they'd done differently. It was devastating to think of my children never getting to know my parents, and my parents never having a single day to spend with my children.
Year 24
I wasn't working outside the home and had plenty of time to read while I nursed or held my son in a rocking chair. I lost count of how many parenting books I read that year. I was drawn to the attachment parenting approach. As I learned more and watched my son develop, I understood how important that initial secure attachment to a caregiver is for babies and toddlers, not just emotionally but on a neurological level. When a child has a consistent, loving parent in the early months and years, that child develops the ability to trust and love. Even if trauma or tragedy disrupts the family bonds later, the child will forever benefit from having had that attachment. As much as I still missed my mother on a daily basis, I again felt grateful to have received unconditional love.
Year 25
From what I remember, I was in a stable place during this year. My son kept me busy, and I enjoyed life with a baby and toddler even more than I thought I would. I don't recall struggling with grief during this year, but I did envy other moms whose parents were around to babysit or help them in other ways.
Year 26
During this year, my second child was born, and the newborn period was very intense. I felt much more confident about taking care of a baby, but parenting a baby and toddler simultaneously was challenging. I sought advice from other experienced moms, but of course I really wanted to talk to my own mother. How did she juggle things with two, three, four, and five children, especially since her husband was working longer hours than my husband did? I wished she could be there to play with my older son so I could nap while the baby was sleeping.
I am fond of my in-laws and was happy to have them visit us, but on the days I watched my older son have the time of his life with Grandma and Granddad, I felt my parents' absence deeply.
Year 27
By now my husband and I were getting the hang of parenting two children, and I didn't feel so overwhelmed. But I still had so many questions about my childhood. Had my siblings or I done the same kinds of things my kids were doing at the various stages of development? How did my parents handle the annoying or frustrating behaviors that popped up from time to time? Honestly, I didn't feel anything was missing from my life except my parents.
Year 28
The big crisis of this year was a strep infection that got out of control and put me in the hospital for a week. While I was lying in the hospital, in pain with a fever, no appetite and nothing to do, I desperately wanted my mother to come sit with me. I had a couple of brief hospital stays as a child, and my mother was with me the whole time. My sister flew to Des Moines to keep me company for a few days, which I appreciated so much as my husband was tied up at home watching our children. Still, I wished my mother had been there.
During the spring of 2008, one of my brothers and I had a running argument about whether our mother would have supported Hillary or Obama for president. I used to ask friends and relatives, who mostly agreed with me that she would have been for Hillary. I don't know why we kept hashing out this unanswerable question. She didn't even live to see Reagan elected president, so how could we guess her views on Hillary Clinton?
Year 29
I turned 40 this year. Getting older didn't depress me, but I often recalled that my mother never made it to 50. I occasionally struggle with fears that I won't live to see my kids grow up, and as a parent I can imagine the worries my mother must have had during her illness. On the other hand, I realize that while I can't control the length of my life, I have given my children unconditional love, which will serve them well.
Year 30
I thought the year leading up to the 30th anniversary of my mother's death would trouble me more than it has. Again I feel that I have reached an equilibrium. I know that while my mother's death has affected my life, it hasn't ruined my life.
Thanks to anyone who made it through such a long diary.
