![]() ![]() Sometimes it’s more matter-of-fact, as if my mother is sitting in some imaginary boardroom and I’m presenting an executive summary of that year’s emotional highlights and low points. ![]() ![]() Sometimes it’s an exploration of a singular event during which I felt my mom’s absence acutely, like the 2016 spring break week when I was battling strep throat all the while trying to care for my kids. The content of my letter is different each year. My file folder of painstakingly crafted essays has grown steadily, yet it has failed to contain or diminish the sadness, which only reinvents itself over time.Īnd yet, I feel compelled to complete the ritual, year after year. Writing my mother a letter each year hasn’t insulated me from the sting of these moments, as I’d once hoped. There are the weekend afternoons when, bearing a striking resemblance to my mom decades ago, I dash out of the house holding my indispensable cup of coffee as my family waits in the car. There was the day I was in the grocery store and saw a can of Lysol on the shelf, and I instantly recalled how my mom and I had secretly used a variation of “Lysol” as a nickname for a cranky acquaintance. I notice my mom’s absence not only in the big milestones and challenges but also in the everyday moments when a glimmer of her quirky personality resurfaces. My mom isn’t here to share in these joys, and she wasn’t by my side during some sad and frightening times, from health setbacks to the postpartum emotional rollercoaster. As I watch my kids grow up, I’m overwhelmed by how much my mother is missing: birthday celebrations and inside jokes, dance recitals and school concerts, Saturday morning pancake breakfasts and endless cups of coffee. In 2009, five years after my mom’s death, my first daughter was born two years later, I welcomed my second daughter. Since becoming a mom myself, I’ve experienced these moments more frequently. My file folder of painstakingly crafted essays has grown steadily, yet it has failed to contain or diminish the sadness, which only reinvents itself over time.’ ‘Writing my mother a letter each year hasn’t insulated me from the sting of these moments, as I’d once hoped. It might lie dormant for a time, only to spill out at the most inopportune moments, alarming the world with its rawness. With carefully chosen words and tightly constructed paragraphs, I imagined that I could capture the messy emotions and hold them at bay, at least until the following year.īut grief, I soon learned, will not be tidily packaged and put on a shelf to be accessed at a time of one’s choosing. ![]() More than just a ritual to honor my mom’s memory, I’d also envisioned the letters as a sort of emotional storage unit for my grief, a way to keep the sadness and anger neatly contained. This was a self-imposed deadline, but one I felt bound to meet - and I did. “No,” I grumbled in a sudden burst of annoyance. “Why not work on it more tomorrow?” suggested my husband, sensing my agitation. As the sky darkened, I felt mild panic rising in my throat. A drizzly evening last April found me at my computer, writing my annual letter to my mother, as has been my tradition for the past decade on the anniversary of her death. ![]()
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