How we got here
I was 15 years old when my mom was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma. It was the night of my high school’s talent show and everything changed with one conversation. Life became after school visits to the hospital and endless research about the cancer that had become our reality. Mom remained a rock and beacon of light even in the worst lows. Her joy and laughter could not be put out by the chemo and radiation. She gave us hope in times where we could not hope ourselves.
Right before my senior year of high school mom’s condition rapidly deteriorated and she died on August 14, 2012. You’ll see me refer to my mom as, “the greatest love of my life and worst heartbreak.” Nothing and no one could’ve prepared me for how earth shattering that heartbreak was.
The first weeks felt like learning how to be a human again. How to breathe with lungs that have been crushed. Walk with legs that have been broken. How to perform basic functions like eating and showering. Sleeping didn’t feel like an option because even closing your eyes couldn’t give you a moment of reprieve.
Weeks turned into months, months turned into years, years turned into a decade. Life move forward even though I never moved on. Milestone after milestone passed and with each one I celebrated and mourned a new kind of loss – the chapters of my life mom would never get to read. Through many many tears, screams, heart splintering and gut punching pain, I learned how to grow around my grief. Weave it into the fibers of my ever evolving being. Over time I developed a relationship with grief. I could ask it to tuck itself away on the days I needed to function. On occasions I would let it swell in my chest and allow the waves to wash over me, feeling everything that needed to be released.
The last words mom ever said to me were in the fluorescent lit hospital room where she spent what would become her final days. I held her hand and pleaded, “I cannot live without you.” She smiled and squeezed my hand tightly. “You can,” she said, “and you will.”
I did. I am.
Why Dear Mom?
Mom loved writing letters. They’d be written on all sorts of paper – binder paper, graph sheets, printer paper. Each letter was written with a tenderness and love that captured her joy of being a mom. She’d sneak them into treats she’d surprise us with or leave them on our pillows. Some were no more than a few sentences but they always brought a smile to my face.
During her cancer treatment the letters became more frequent. Our special communication in times when we couldn’t go near her for fear of infection. They expressed her dismay of missing out on school events and family outings with her promise that she’d make them up to us.
The day before my mom died I wrote a letter that I left on her bed. “Dear mom,” are the only two words I remember. My hope is it would welcome her home when she got back from the hospital. She never got the letter.
Every once in a while I will take out the letters I’ve saved and reread them. I’ll run my fingers along the faded handwriting as if I could lift the words off the paper and hear them in her voice. I sit and cry and drown in love and sadness all at the same time. Wishing she knew all of the things I want to tell her.
Each year on three important anniversaries I write a letter to my mom: her birthday, Mother’s Day, and the day of her death. They’ve become a time for me to share where I’m at in life. The new realizations and experiences I’ve come into. How I’ve learned more about her as a mom and as a woman.
I’ve decided to share these letters with all of you. The past ones and the future ones to come. This blog will also feature things that have remained preserved in faded journals, buried Word docs and iPhone notes for the past 12 years. It wasn’t the right time to share them with the world. Now they will have a home.