My mom passed away four years ago today. A piece of me wedges loose every August and I feel an emptiness and longing that ebbs and flows. It's like -- for a little while -- my limbs go numb, my heartbeat slows and I know what it must be like to be colorblind. The grief isn't a stabbing pain the way it was at first; it's a duller sadness. Sometimes I imagine she's sitting with me while I quietly nurse Charlie and I feel tears running down my cheeks at 4am. When I trained for my marathon, I used to mentally detach my legs from my brain to ease the physical ache. In August, as the 16th approaches and I feel the weight of her loss, sometimes I try to disassociate my head from my heart. Today I told Madeline I felt sad. She took her band-aid off her knee and put it on my arm, then wrapped her skinny little arms around my neck and made me feel whole again.Talking about my mom with my sisters sharpens my senses; it's easier to remember how she sounded and what she smelled like and things she said. We always, always end up laughing. Today, Mollie told me about the time she and my mom went clothes shopping at Target for her first professional post-college job. Mols got a phone call and they had to leave suddenly, so my mom, with all her enthusiasm and joie de vivre said, "Let's buy them all!" Without having tried anything on, they wheeled the full shopping cart to the check out and bought $350-worth of clothes, most of them the exact same pants and skirts in different sizes. A week later they returned almost everything...something my mom did often.
She was fabulous. Before she was sick, she had dark shiny hair and wore fuchsia lipstick. She had a beautiful full figure (though she was always trying to lose weight). When she started losing her hair from chemo, she shaved her head with gusto and glittered it with powder from Victoria Secret. She laughed loudly and a lot. She had a funky, eclectic style, and was willing to take risks, which fueled her creativity and is probably part of the reason she was such a talented artist and graphic designer. She painted our kitchen floor white, our fireplace orange and our front door magenta. She was always inventing businesses, and she dreamed about converting an old farmhouse in the countryside into an art studio.
She gave my sisters and me so many gifts, but the faith she worked into our everyday life is one of the greatest. She told me God matches our effort, which I think of often when a challenge feels bigger than me. One of my earliest memories is of her telling me that God has a great sense of humor. When I called home from college stressed out, undecided or brokenhearted, she asked me if I had prayed about it. Sometimes now when I feel stuck, I try to imagine what she would do or say. Ironically, I can imagine her saying simply -- with the loving directness that she was known for -- that she didn't know what to say. It stung then, but it strangely comforts me now. She was teaching us to be independent.
Sometimes after Madeline and I wait out a thunderstorm, the most brilliant sunshine follows and we run outside to play, getting out her chalk, jumping in the puddles and shaking the rain out of the trees. I will never stop missing my mom. August 16 may always be a hurdle. But it also marks the day she went to heaven, and there's something beautiful to celebrate in that.
