This is a photo of my Mom. I think that baby is me.
Here are a few things I have written about her through the years. For a different perspective, you can check out what my Aunt Kathie has written about her experience losing her big sister.
September 25, 1999
Please let that be my mother's car... I thought it over and over again. The next one will be hers. Or the one after that.
Finally, a car pulled down our dead end road. That must be her. But it was different. Something about the headlights and the way the motor sounded. And then it passed our house and slowed down. Like it was lost. That's when the search light came on and I knew that something wasn't right.
When we answered the knock at the door there was a policeman waiting there. "Your wife was involved in an incident." My father left with him and I was alone.
I was a little worried. I thought my mother had been in a car accident. But that's OK. She'd recover. She would be fine.
My sister came home. I was lying quietly in bed, trying not to cry. But as soon as I spoke to answer her, I couldn't help it. "Mom was in a car accident." She cried too, but we stopped quickly, knowing that nothing bad ever really happens.
My dad came back hours later. He called us downstairs, and choked out the news. "Your mother's dead."
It wasn't until months later that I really thought about what that meant. My Mom's car would never pull up to the house again. And it wasn't for another ten years or so that I truly understood how painful "never" could be.
I will never know her. No matter how much I cry or feel or ache. It makes no difference. Because that is what "dead" means - Never again.
Fall 1992
I didn't cry when I heard that Mother was dead. "She was stabbed." I watched my dad's eyes swell with tears as he answered my brother's questions. My sister was hysterical beside me - not knowing what to do with her hands, or whether to sit or stand or just collapse onto the floor. My brother sat down between us and pulled us toward him with protective arms. I only wanted to go to sleep, but I just sat quietly, hoping no one would ask why I was so calm.
The next morning I couldn't remember my mother's face. I searched for hours for photographs, but there weren't any - only the wedding picture from twenty years ago. That wasn't the mother I knew.
After three days passed I had lost all of my memories of her but one. I had angered her somehow. I couldn't remember exactly what I had done, but it must have been fairly severe because Mother rarely got angry. She searched impatiently for something to throw - something through which she could vent her anger. The acorn squash which was to be served with dinner that night was hurled through the kitchen and into the livingroom - Bang! - into the closet door. It was the most hilarious and frightening thing she ever did.
We had many visitors in those few days, all expressing their sympathy for my family. I tried to look solemn, but all I wanted to do was laugh. I wanted to enjoy the brisk October afternoon, jumping in the neighbors' freshly raked leaves, but instead I was trapped inside a house of mourning relatives and friends. Some hadn't known my mother, but seemed more affected by her death than I was. I felt as though nothing had changed. For three days I had never had a mother.
On the fourth day, my family and I left the house for the first time to go to the wake. Since no one close to me had ever died I didn't know what to expect. I walked through the halls of the funeral home, all the time looking for the casket. I turned the last corner, and there she lay - looking more beautiful than I'd ever seen her. She slept so soundly that I felt like an intrusion on her death. I broke down instantly and collapsed onto the nearest love seat. I was alone and helpless and flooded with memories of bagged lunches and meatloaf dinners. All the emotions that had evaded me for the past three days burst out in uncontrollable sobbing.
The memories have grown hazier and Mother's face is not so clear in my mind. But I can still see her throwing that squash against the closet door. And I can still see her lying there peacefully in eternal sleep, looking so beautiful. I haven't wept since.
Fall 1991
I sit by the livingroom window watching as the thick grey clouds roll in against my home, now my house. "Be careful, it's slippery outside." She'll be home by six o'clock. I'm awfully hungry now. Dinner is on its way. I watch the rain pouring down the empty driveway. That's all I can see now. "Help me! Somebody help me!" I feel my stomach growling. He is worried, but I don't know it yet. "Why did he do it?" She will never know. Neither will her slayer. It's eight o'clock. The power is out. Our only light is a small candle and a flash of lightening. There will be no dinner tonight for me. I will never eat again. "Take care of the kids." Silence. She will never speak again. I am alone now in my house, waiting for news. Now I sit and wonder about my future. Soon I will forget my past.
November 19, 2002
Today, for the first time, I learned of the specific circumstances of my mother's murder. She was putting groceries in her car when a 16-year-old boy stabbed her to death. He didn't steal anything, he just felt like killing someone and my mother was there. There was a woman with her when she died. That much I already knew. That's all I knew, until now.
He stabbed her once and she screamed for help. The more she screamed, the more he stabbed her. She put her hand up to block him and he stabbed her hand and wrist. he stabbed her in the leg and several times in her chest. The fatal wound was to her heart. She was found by two women who had been driving by and heard her screaming. My mother was leaning on her car and then fell. She was hysterical. "Please help me, please help me, I've been stabbed." She said that several times. She tried to get up but fell down again. One woman called the police while the other wrapped clothes around her wounds to try and stop the bleeding.
My mother was an amazingly kind and generous soul. She died violently. She died terrified. You might think that this revelation would make me feel angry or vengeful. Or you might think that I would try to be above that and instead I would feel sad for the boy who killed my mother. I don't feel any of those things right now. I just feel afraid. I am afraid of a world with people who can look at a woman as sweet as my mother, a woman screaming for her life, and continue to plunge a knife into her over and over. I'm afraid of seeing his face again or reading his name. I'm afraid of learning something new that could somehow make me feel worse than I do right now. I'm afraid that this world will never feel beautiful again.
I don't know why we always focus on the last moments of a person's life. Why should her last tragic hour be so much more important than the 51 and a half years that came before? Maybe her life wasn't perfect, but she had good friends, a good education, family that loved her, children whom she adored. That is what I should think of when I think of my mother. But right now, I can only think of that last terrible hour and how helpless I am to undo it.
June 24, 2003
Almost fifteen years ago, my mother was killed. By this time you know that because look how many times I have written of it. Always the same, always coming to terms with it as though I have just lost her. It never seems to get any better. In fact, it hurts more now than it did when it happened. That's not saying much since I felt almost nothing in the beginning. It was too hard to feel anything.
But time passed and I started to miss her. I started to realize how much I had lost when I lost my mother. For the last several years I have been trying to reclaim some piece of her. I wanted to feel like a girl who once had a mother. I wanted to remember what that was like. I wrote about her. I shared memories of her with friends and family. I watched stupid psychic TV shows with some vague hope that maybe someone can really talk to dead people. All I have done is repeatedly remind myself of how frustrating and painful it is to never be able to see her again.
So painful that I cannot tolerate the idea that I might have to feel this way about anyone else. I have become so good at guarding myself against such an event that I am barely able to feel anything for anyone. I shut down before I have a chance to fall in love. When I find a true friend, I make up reasons why she doesn't really count. I take pride in my loneliness. Somehow, if I don't let anyone fill my life up, there will still be room for my mother to come back to me.
I don't want to be alone anymore. I can't keep searching for a dead woman. It's time for me to let her go. My mother is dead. I am a girl without a mother. There are other aspects of life that I can focus on. There are other sides to my identity. There is a joyful world out there. I am filled with a love for life and a desire to share it. I'm done hiding from the living.
I love you, Mom. I miss you so much.