That Big Hole
It’s a gorgeous day here in Northern California - truly idyllic. It’s sunny, 76°, there’s a light breeze, and everything is in bloom. It's really hard not to be happy when there’s a day like this. Yet here I am, sitting at my desk, crying much of the day. Sometimes this happens. And I really hate it when this mood takes over, especially on a day like this, a day I just want to enjoy.
Usually, there’s just one thing that has triggered these sad feelings. Someone says something, innocently enough, but their words punch me in the gut, and they remind me - you are not like other people. You are one of those people with a huge hole. And your hole is always there, and every kind person in your life can see it.
You don’t want them looking at your hole - it’s dark, and it’s ugly, and frankly scary. And you think, “I can fill this hole with something, and then I’ll be fine.” You’re sure of it. So you play every beautiful song on your flute, and you swim a hundred laps in the pool under the bright sun, and you take a drive up valley with the windows rolled down, blaring Aretha Franklin. But then you come home, and those words you heard last night that triggered the whole thing are still ringing in your ears, and you know it’s going to take a few days to forget what was said and get on with things.
You’re going to have to find a way to get past the ridiculous notions you had that you could build a life that would make up for all the things you’ve lost, and that you could be whole again.
Since there is no bottom to this hole, you grab at whatever is nearby to keep from slipping into the abyss - some sort of frenetic activity that wears you down and makes you so tired you can forget about this thing. For those of you like me, who grew up without their mother - you know exactly what I’m talking about. This does not go away.
My mother was gone when I was five. I was really small. Just a little girl who still had her milk teeth. I hadn’t even started kindergarten. Then suddenly, I had to be a big girl. Really big - like taking care of my baby brother big. I remember every moment of those sad days. My brother was inconsolable, and his crying broke my heart and multiplied my grief a hundredfold. It is a memory I will never forget.
For years, I have been reminded over and over again that I have no mother. It’s like a cruel joke - those first days of school each year, at birthdays, holidays, recitals, graduations, weddings, births, every right of passage… my mom - not there. And people always wondered about that. “Where is your mother?” I never knew how to respond. I had no idea why she was gone.
And this I know, there are so many of us in this world - the big hole people. People who didn’t grow up with a mom or whose mothers were lost to illness and accidents.
So this Mother’s Day, reach your hand out to your sad friend and hold it tight. Help them get through the day. Share your home, hold them, feed them. Mother them. Let them enjoy and know that feeling of being mothered. It will make all the difference in the world, and you will have done a really good thing.
OK. I'm beginning to understand. 5. How awful.
I was lucky. I had a really good mother. And I didn't lose either parent until I was in my late 40s. Not that I didn't understand what it would be like. When I was 7 and my brother was 10, after we'd finally gotten back to Seattle after one year in Boston had been stretched to three, so that my mother could do some work that was necessary for her PhD thesis, my parents asked the two of us how we'd feel about getting another sibling.
I told them they were too old. They were nonplussed. But they never asked me why I thought they were too old. Had they asked, I would have told them that the kid might be young when they died, and it would be hard on the kid.
And we did get a baby sister two years and a couple of months later, and four decades later, when the parents got sick, and when they died, it was harder on her than it was on us.
Still, she got through it in one solid piece, and she's truly fine.
I can remember, after learning about mortality, probably at age six, but maybe earlier. The Shulmans, a family I'd known since age 4, as composed of a father and two kids, came over for dinner, with a woman in tow (who I learned years later ultimately married Marshal Shulman) who looked like she was not part of the family, my recollection being that the Shulmans were casually dressed and she had dressed fancy, and felt--to me at least--to be a bit out of place. I don't remember asking questions, but I'm guessing that I did, after they left, and that my questions got answered honestly.
After that, I'm pretty certain, I had a dream, with an odd ditty in it, which I think was more poetic than what I'm able to remember: "She's good and alive and living well/but sometimes it's better to go back to your own shell," the latter being death. The gist of it was that my mother was mortal, but she'd be around for a long time.
Sending hugs. I give hubby an extra hug every year. He lost his mom when she was 50.