Mother's Day

This mother’s day hasn’t been that hard for me….and I’m not sure how I feel about it. Usually this weekend hits me like a steel toe to the gut. I’m hurled over crying for something that I can’t really explain. It’s more than mourning over a dead parent. It’s more complicated and even darker than death itself. It’s this bleak feeling that I’m cursed and destined for endless pain. Forever feeling different and inadequate because I never got to experience this whole unconditional mother’s love thing that apparently is god given to everyone but me. 

But this year, I don’t feel that way. If I do cry, it won’t be for myself. It’ll be for my mother’s short yet traumatic life. Of course it’s taken me awhile to get here. I only felt drawn to even look at how my mother’s death might have affected me until I turned 32 years old, the age my mother was when she got killed. For the first time I began to see her less of this absent mythical creature and more flesh and blood.

So since I began this dead mom journey: I stopped testing the limits to my own mortality and got sober. ( I thought I was destined to have her fate…) I began to ask questions to all those who knew her. I reopened her murder case and read a 72 page investigation report that is not open to the public, but the detectives allowed me to read it in case I would add new information. In the report, I saw a picture of my mother’s dead body where she was found sprawled out in the front seat of a station wagon with her left tit hanging out in a grocery store parking lot.  An image I’ll never not be able to unsee. I spent $450 on a medium and communicated with my mother’s spirit… and I honestly felt like I did. Oh, and lots of therapy. 

So where does that leave me and my mom, now? 

I realized that I can move on without knowing all the answers.

Will I know, for sure, who killed her? Will I ever find out who dumped her body onto a parking lot as if she were merely trash and not a mother of two? And even if I was told who did it, does that mean anything? Knowing who to blame won’t bring her back. I won’t be able to redo my childhood. Nor will it change anything now other than I’ll be more angry. 

Good news: I am closer to my mom now more than ever. I am allowed to feel: bitter/sad/embarrassed/irritated/proud/loved/supported by her even though she’s dead. 

I always hated when my adult friend’s would complain about their mothers in front of me.  

“My mom is so annoying. She’s in town and gets on my nerves. She’s alway knit-picking me about this and that…” 

Now I can chime in… 

“Ugh. I know! My mother is so annoying for getting murdered. It’s literally the worse….” 

I can express that because well, it’s true.

Also, I know my mother is not upset with me. I can make jokes about her. I can write about the complexity of our relationship in my blog and future book. At first I was worried she wouldn’t like me saying anything bad about her or drawing attention to anything other than her being an angel in heaven. But that’s not the case.

If anything, my mother has given me courage to speak my truth. She’s pushing me towards to being loud and bold like her death. For so long, I’ve been fighting against that. I saw myself as small and unimportant, but she has given me a voice and perhaps even a calling. 

This gift is better than any inheritance she could have given me. Well, she did give me an inheritance, but my dad spent all of it.

But this gift, my dad can’t spend. No one can take this away from me.

So thank you, Mom. I’m loving our relationship now. I’m looking forward to what awaits us next…