Content Warning: This article discusses grief.
A little less than three years ago, my darling best friend, my Girlfriend, my Mama passed away. I wish I could say it gets easier every day. In a way, I wish it would. In another way, I hope it never gets easier.
I hope it never gets easier to feel sad because I miss something so uniquely her. I hope I am forever reminded of her when I see lollipops at the bank and tear up a little when I wear her Salem, Massachusetts sweatshirt.
I hope I never forget what makes me think of her—what was once her. I hope I never lose sight of the images that bring me closer to her.
The week before she passed, I told my then therapist I was already grieving her, a process I truly began over a year before she ultimately passed. I was drained and could no longer hold myself together. I finally broke down to this therapist and told her the honest truth that I was scared I would forget about her.
I was terrified of losing her memories. Some parts of her just belonged to me, and without me to tell those stories, no one would ever hear about the time she and I chased down the ice cream man to soon be covered in melting soft serve. No one would hear about it every time she practiced yoga with me or danced in the living room while my first dog tried to join. No one would hear about the “naps” I took while I waited for her to give me the go-ahead to come back out of her room and join her in the recliner to watch TV.
I am reminded of this when I see my cousin’s daughters. The oldest likely remembers her, and the youngest is only a few months old, too late to meet the sparkle in this world that was my Mama. The one that hurts the most is her middle daughter. She knew Mama for the first year of her life, but I know she doesn’t remember her.
I don’t understand, deep down, how I’ll raise my kids without having my Mama only a call away, nor how they’ll know they’re loved without a plate of sweet rolls on Easter. How will I carry on these traditions when I can’t ask for help from the one who started them?
I really feel for my older cousins who got to spend more than 30 years with the gem, herself. I was lucky enough to spend the first nearly 18 years of my life with her, enjoying countless laughs and sharing a relationship beyond explanation.
These feelings of grief have been hitting me especially hard this semester, and I’m not sure if it’s due to my higher levels of stress or my realization that graduation is creeping up sooner than I’d like. The spring has been especially hard for me throughout the last three years because her birthday was in May, and she passed just two weeks before it.
There’s no one I want to call more right now to talk about every part of my life that is going so well, and there’s no one I want a hug from more that reminds me I could not be more loved. I am so full of her love in ways I see every day.
Every so often, I’ll bring up her name and realize none of my friends in college knew her or had the privilege of listening in to one of our daily phone calls. They never tried her fudge, danced at church, or searched for sea glass at the beach with her. How could they know what they’re missing?
I recently moved one of my last photos with her to right beside my bed, so she’s the first thing I see in the morning and the last I see at night. I didn’t need this until I started to realize how much life I was living without thinking about her or taking the time to notice my grief.
When I start to wind down now, I wonder what she would be doing if she were still accompanying me on Earth. I wrap up in her quilt every night, and when I need an extra hug, I’ll take the time to look through the few videos I have that don’t remind me of the days I held my breath in fear and anticipation.
I hope I never quite get over her loss. It continues to ebb and flow through seasons of my life, and I often wonder if it has done the same thing for my cousins, my aunts, and my uncles. I wonder sometimes if my grief would be easier to hold if I shared it with the family she loved as well.
I continue to honor every day she made special, and if we’re being honest, she made every day special. I think of her on all the “normal” holidays, but I also think of her on the 13th of every month, the date she passed on. I think of her during Lent as I remember my final Lent and Easter with her and the pain that accompanied it. I think of her every time I hear the rain fall, and I want to run outside in my bikini to jump in the puddles.
The pain is still there, but it doesn’t ache so much anymore. It tires me out to remember how much loss I felt during her passing, and revitalizes me when I look to the sky and see a new day has dawned, and it’s another chance to live out the life she helped me to work for — to love as she had loved.