Missing Mom
I find it hard to believe I haven’t published a post on this blog for almost three years. I visit it from time to time to read what was happening at a certain time of year. Or just to remember that intense period of my life, and how writing my way through it made it more bearable and strengthened my bond to Mom.
Yesterday and today, I’ve been reading posts from the month of October eight years ago, when Mom died on Oct. 27, five days after my 50th birthday. I was surprised my blog posts from that time were not showing up in my Facebook memories. I’m guessing whatever sharing option that existed back then isn’t operational anymore – or something like that. I don’t even know how to articulate the technology. This blog was always low-tech, just a basic journal. If I had tried to make it more attractive visually, I may not have kept with it. I can follow instructions for posting on the web, but I have never been willing to figure out anything but the basics by myself for the purposes of blogging. I’m actually finding writing here now unfamiliar and different, so I just hope I don’t mess it up.
I’ve been thinking about writing about missing Mom for a while. And it relates to a podcast. I started listening about two months ago to Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ podcast Wiser Than Me, in which she interviews older women – actors, musicians, writers, activists – about aging and recollections of their younger years. I really enjoyed it, but was taken by surprise when I started choking up at the end of the first episode, when Julia called her mom to talk about the interview she had done with Jane Fonda. I love it that she worked her mother into the podcast. I envy the close relationship she has with her mom, whom she often calls Mommy. And I thought, every time I listened to her calls with her mom at the end of each episode, that I was robbed of the chance to talk about aging with Mom.
It’s been about 20 years since I first started wondering if something was wrong with Mom – I initially thought it was a hearing problem, but I also thought of her as skipping a beat sometimes, being unable to follow a conversation or confused about finances. I was 38, she was 66. Neither of us knew at that time that we were already running out of time to have meaningful conversations. I hope the disease process actually protected Mom from being aware of the loss of function as it happened, even when it seemed subtle. And I was young enough that I didn’t think of the life lessons I still wanted to learn from Mom. I had to age to realize how much of that I lost. I remember writing about “the long goodbye” concept of Alzheimer’s in 2014 and how misleading that phrase is – because there is no meaningful goodbye with this disease.
Now that I’m closing in on 60, there are lots of things about aging that I’d like to be able to discuss with Mom. She was an intellectual, and funny, and endured a lot of personal and professional struggle in her life. I suspect she would have had a lot of insight to share about navigating the sometimes unfriendly world as a middle-aged and older woman, and would have helped me understand that there are so many things that just aren’t worth worrying about. I worry about so many things that I can’t control, and I still worry about what people think of me – sometimes, at least, but not in all contexts. Bonnie struck me as someone confident in her decisions and actions, even if fallout followed. I can be willful and speak my mind, and when I do, it’s because I think it’s the right thing to do. But I often second-guess myself, too. I’d like to have a mom around to tell me I shouldn’t fear being true to myself.
Maybe writing this, and drawing on what I recall about her life, will help change my frame of mind. I’ll never stop missing her. But I can gain strength from my memories.
Yesterday and today, I’ve been reading posts from the month of October eight years ago, when Mom died on Oct. 27, five days after my 50th birthday. I was surprised my blog posts from that time were not showing up in my Facebook memories. I’m guessing whatever sharing option that existed back then isn’t operational anymore – or something like that. I don’t even know how to articulate the technology. This blog was always low-tech, just a basic journal. If I had tried to make it more attractive visually, I may not have kept with it. I can follow instructions for posting on the web, but I have never been willing to figure out anything but the basics by myself for the purposes of blogging. I’m actually finding writing here now unfamiliar and different, so I just hope I don’t mess it up.
I’ve been thinking about writing about missing Mom for a while. And it relates to a podcast. I started listening about two months ago to Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ podcast Wiser Than Me, in which she interviews older women – actors, musicians, writers, activists – about aging and recollections of their younger years. I really enjoyed it, but was taken by surprise when I started choking up at the end of the first episode, when Julia called her mom to talk about the interview she had done with Jane Fonda. I love it that she worked her mother into the podcast. I envy the close relationship she has with her mom, whom she often calls Mommy. And I thought, every time I listened to her calls with her mom at the end of each episode, that I was robbed of the chance to talk about aging with Mom.
It’s been about 20 years since I first started wondering if something was wrong with Mom – I initially thought it was a hearing problem, but I also thought of her as skipping a beat sometimes, being unable to follow a conversation or confused about finances. I was 38, she was 66. Neither of us knew at that time that we were already running out of time to have meaningful conversations. I hope the disease process actually protected Mom from being aware of the loss of function as it happened, even when it seemed subtle. And I was young enough that I didn’t think of the life lessons I still wanted to learn from Mom. I had to age to realize how much of that I lost. I remember writing about “the long goodbye” concept of Alzheimer’s in 2014 and how misleading that phrase is – because there is no meaningful goodbye with this disease.
Now that I’m closing in on 60, there are lots of things about aging that I’d like to be able to discuss with Mom. She was an intellectual, and funny, and endured a lot of personal and professional struggle in her life. I suspect she would have had a lot of insight to share about navigating the sometimes unfriendly world as a middle-aged and older woman, and would have helped me understand that there are so many things that just aren’t worth worrying about. I worry about so many things that I can’t control, and I still worry about what people think of me – sometimes, at least, but not in all contexts. Bonnie struck me as someone confident in her decisions and actions, even if fallout followed. I can be willful and speak my mind, and when I do, it’s because I think it’s the right thing to do. But I often second-guess myself, too. I’d like to have a mom around to tell me I shouldn’t fear being true to myself.
Maybe writing this, and drawing on what I recall about her life, will help change my frame of mind. I’ll never stop missing her. But I can gain strength from my memories.
A blog inspired by my Mom’s Brain 
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