We joked about our differences. Often times, bickered too. As adult women, Mother and Daughter couldn’t have appeared to be more different. “You’re just like your Father,” she would say. “Well, is that good ... you divorced him twenty years ago?!” We’d laugh.
It wasn’t until I began sifting through years of memories, that I realized, perhaps, we weren’t so different after all.
You see, my Mom unexpectedly passed away back in October 2008. Who would have ever known that she was terminally ill, not even me, her only daughter. Not my brother either . It was all so unexpected: the diagnosis, the need for full time urgent care, and the repeated hospitalizations; just three weeks. Never, in the midst of sharing my dreams and plans with her that year, did I know that she wouldn’t be here to share in the excitement of my change. Regardless of what was happening to her, she always listened to me.
She never led on; was she even aware? As I write, my heart still aches for her, as I envision her final days; certainly not the physically strong woman I always knew.
Since her death, I’ve begun to see her perspective on many things. As I discovered essays she wrote, I read in amazement, as I thought it was me writing it all. Dreams were vivid and clear. Even our writing was similar, our clothing style too. She even adorned herself with jewelry; I was in disbelief, as I sifted through old photos.
It’s always been me with the endless boxes of earrings! “Enough Sandy!” she’d repeat every time I found myself at the checkout with another pair. I began to question more and more, where was that young woman? Did I know her, or did she put “her” aside solely to be my Mom?
I yearn for my Mom to be here. To share in her delight of being a Grandmother. For her endless “baseball alerts”; she was an avid Boston Red Sox fan.
To fulfill the dreams, she perhaps, never realized. Were there anymore, tucked away, or only left in her heart, never to be discovered? Or did she truly fulfill them all? I’ll never have the answers. I do know, as her daughter, that her love was unconditional and unwavering every day of my life. I’m blessed because of it.
