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Missing My Mom
Tomorrow is my birthday, and although I’m not sad about turning another year older, I am sad.
My mom always texted me first thing in the morning with “Happy Birthday! I love you bunches!” and several emojis. This is the second year that I won’t get that text. Last year it didn’t bother me as much. I was in the throes of getting her house emptied out, fixed up, and sold, so I was still numb.
This year, it hurts. A lot.
Our relationship was complicated. But I knew that she loved me and that I loved her. We both did the best we could.
When she got sick, there was so much to do. My parents divorced when I was 3, and I am an only child, so the responsibility fell to me. There were doctor appointments that I needed to go to because my mom was not what they call a “reliable reporter”- she tended to tell the doctors what she thought they wanted to hear and not what was truly going on. And she would oftentimes flat out not tell them things that were important for them to know. She also tended to hear what she wanted to hear, not what the doctors actually said. There were chemotherapy sessions that I needed to drive her to and from, because she didn’t feel well afterward. There was dialysis, three times a week, that I needed to drive her to and from because sometimes she got lightheaded.
