Today, I am 9 years old.
In about an hour and a half, it will be exactly 31 years ago that my grandmother sat my brother and me down to tell us that our mom had died. It was a Saturday. Grandma had got the call at 3 o'clock in the morning. Mom had passed away in her sleep.
There are two things that are really horrible about this other than the intrinsic horrible-ness: a mother should never get a call that her daughter has died, and little kids shouldn't be told their mother has died.
And yet. It happened.
I dread this day every year. I am 40 years old, but on this day every year I am 9, and I remember the shock and loss I felt when grandma told us.
Things are sort of vague after that. The next memories I have are of the funeral and the burial. My dad being utterly sad, which was maybe the most startling thing. What do you do to make your parent happier when they've just lost the love of their life? When you're a kid, you can't grasp this. You just stumble around feeling helpless.
Then school in the fall. That was the year with Mrs. Campbell, who I'm sure I've written about before. Because I didn't do much in class but sit around and stare at the wall or draw, she used to come by and practically yell "woe is me, Katie! Woe is me! Oh, woe!" in my face, in front of everyone. It was her way of telling me to just get over it. With those words, she made me feel guilty, weak, inadequate and very, very confused. I hated her deeply then, and I hate her deeply now. I'm not the kind of person to really hate anyone. But her? She was just mean. Mean to the core.
I wasn't looking for sympathy. I wanted my mom back. I wanted my normal life with my family back. I can't properly express how the death of a parent when you're a kid suddenly turns your life upside down. Your whole reality is shifted and in many ways, you're not sure how things are supposed to be. Nothing's stable anymore. You realize you have no control over anything, you've just lost your best friend, your other parent is absent because he's going through his own private hell, you feel helpless. You flounder. You wonder how the hell you're going to get through the day - for years.
I can't properly explain how things changed when I lost my mom just as I can't possibly understand what life with two parents alive and happy would have been like. You would think I'd have "gotten over it" by now, but now. Today, I am still 9. My grandmother is sitting on the couch, arms around my brother and me, telling us the news.
The logical part of your brain says you can go on and it'll be fine. You need to learn to be normal. But I can say with no small amount of authority that this is impossible. You can't. You just can't. It's not fine. And it hasn't been fine for 31 years. And I've been to therapy and I've talked to doctors and I've sat with mom's friends. And really, truly, I'm about as normal as it gets in my situation. That's it. You lose a parent when you're a kid, you grow up carrying a bottomless pit of hurt when you still haven't learned how the world works yet. And I will absolutely admit that I am angry and jealous of everyone I meet with two parents - perhaps not as much now, though. If they're divorced and there's complaining, I bite my lip not to point out that at least they're both still alive. If a parent dies when the son or daughter is grown, I bite my lip not to say that at least they grew up with both parents. Perhaps I am mean. But I am jealous.
Recently, I got to hear a story about a girl in high school who had lost her mother a couple of years before. She had apparently been "acting out" and was being a general bitch. At least one teacher had real issues with her because it seemed like she couldn't come to grips with how this 16 year old hadn't gotten over her mother's death yet. The world is a harsh place, and the student should realize that she's not going to get sympathy.
To that I say: please, please, please have some compassion. Please. Do not be a Mrs. Campbell. You do not know what is going through this kid's head, and in all likelihood, neither does she. Her world has been altered in a way that you can't imagine. She has to work out how to go on in life without her mom. Her life is no longer stable. She may look fine on the outside, but believe me, inside, she's a mess, and she's going to be a mess for years. She's angry and hurt. So, so angry. You can't imagine the level of anger - it's deep, it embeds itself into every fiber of your being. It's with you every minute of the day and night. She doesn't want sympathy, she just wants her mom back.
Death makes people do strange things. Well. Strange from everyone else's perspective. You sort of expect people to be sad and do sad things like get depressed, withdraw from social life, mope, cry a lot... sometimes, distraction seems better. There's a need to forget at least for a while. So you drink, or you yell, or you "act out".
My mom was 42 when she died. She had been diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 40. The subsequent two years were filled with chemotherapy and radiation after the mastectomy, which left her a mere husk of what she'd been. She couldn't eat because she'd just vomit everything back up. She wouldn't take the morphine because it made her hallucinate, so she was either in pain all the time or passed out from some other drug. Her hair fell out, and when it grew back in, it was white. The side of her chest where her breast was missing was blackened and covered in blisters. Yay, radiation. She stayed on the couch or in the hospital. The doctors did the best they could. I remember when my dad got the call that her cancer had metastasized and she'd been given about six months to live.
She had the sunniest personality. She made me pretty dresses and put ribbons in my hair. She was always making something. She could draw better than anyone else. She was the best cook in the whole world. She read us the best stories. She was friends with everyone - every once in a while, some random person asks me if I am Carolyn's daughter because they say I look like her. There are tears and there's conversation, and I am so happy to have found someone else who knew my mom. She always got out the silver and linen for holiday meals. Christmas was wonderful. My mom was wonderful. Wonderful and perfect.
I miss my mom, and I just want her back, goddammit.
There are two things that are really horrible about this other than the intrinsic horrible-ness: a mother should never get a call that her daughter has died, and little kids shouldn't be told their mother has died.
And yet. It happened.
I dread this day every year. I am 40 years old, but on this day every year I am 9, and I remember the shock and loss I felt when grandma told us.
Things are sort of vague after that. The next memories I have are of the funeral and the burial. My dad being utterly sad, which was maybe the most startling thing. What do you do to make your parent happier when they've just lost the love of their life? When you're a kid, you can't grasp this. You just stumble around feeling helpless.
Then school in the fall. That was the year with Mrs. Campbell, who I'm sure I've written about before. Because I didn't do much in class but sit around and stare at the wall or draw, she used to come by and practically yell "woe is me, Katie! Woe is me! Oh, woe!" in my face, in front of everyone. It was her way of telling me to just get over it. With those words, she made me feel guilty, weak, inadequate and very, very confused. I hated her deeply then, and I hate her deeply now. I'm not the kind of person to really hate anyone. But her? She was just mean. Mean to the core.
I wasn't looking for sympathy. I wanted my mom back. I wanted my normal life with my family back. I can't properly express how the death of a parent when you're a kid suddenly turns your life upside down. Your whole reality is shifted and in many ways, you're not sure how things are supposed to be. Nothing's stable anymore. You realize you have no control over anything, you've just lost your best friend, your other parent is absent because he's going through his own private hell, you feel helpless. You flounder. You wonder how the hell you're going to get through the day - for years.
I can't properly explain how things changed when I lost my mom just as I can't possibly understand what life with two parents alive and happy would have been like. You would think I'd have "gotten over it" by now, but now. Today, I am still 9. My grandmother is sitting on the couch, arms around my brother and me, telling us the news.
The logical part of your brain says you can go on and it'll be fine. You need to learn to be normal. But I can say with no small amount of authority that this is impossible. You can't. You just can't. It's not fine. And it hasn't been fine for 31 years. And I've been to therapy and I've talked to doctors and I've sat with mom's friends. And really, truly, I'm about as normal as it gets in my situation. That's it. You lose a parent when you're a kid, you grow up carrying a bottomless pit of hurt when you still haven't learned how the world works yet. And I will absolutely admit that I am angry and jealous of everyone I meet with two parents - perhaps not as much now, though. If they're divorced and there's complaining, I bite my lip not to point out that at least they're both still alive. If a parent dies when the son or daughter is grown, I bite my lip not to say that at least they grew up with both parents. Perhaps I am mean. But I am jealous.
Recently, I got to hear a story about a girl in high school who had lost her mother a couple of years before. She had apparently been "acting out" and was being a general bitch. At least one teacher had real issues with her because it seemed like she couldn't come to grips with how this 16 year old hadn't gotten over her mother's death yet. The world is a harsh place, and the student should realize that she's not going to get sympathy.
To that I say: please, please, please have some compassion. Please. Do not be a Mrs. Campbell. You do not know what is going through this kid's head, and in all likelihood, neither does she. Her world has been altered in a way that you can't imagine. She has to work out how to go on in life without her mom. Her life is no longer stable. She may look fine on the outside, but believe me, inside, she's a mess, and she's going to be a mess for years. She's angry and hurt. So, so angry. You can't imagine the level of anger - it's deep, it embeds itself into every fiber of your being. It's with you every minute of the day and night. She doesn't want sympathy, she just wants her mom back.
Death makes people do strange things. Well. Strange from everyone else's perspective. You sort of expect people to be sad and do sad things like get depressed, withdraw from social life, mope, cry a lot... sometimes, distraction seems better. There's a need to forget at least for a while. So you drink, or you yell, or you "act out".
My mom was 42 when she died. She had been diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 40. The subsequent two years were filled with chemotherapy and radiation after the mastectomy, which left her a mere husk of what she'd been. She couldn't eat because she'd just vomit everything back up. She wouldn't take the morphine because it made her hallucinate, so she was either in pain all the time or passed out from some other drug. Her hair fell out, and when it grew back in, it was white. The side of her chest where her breast was missing was blackened and covered in blisters. Yay, radiation. She stayed on the couch or in the hospital. The doctors did the best they could. I remember when my dad got the call that her cancer had metastasized and she'd been given about six months to live.
She had the sunniest personality. She made me pretty dresses and put ribbons in my hair. She was always making something. She could draw better than anyone else. She was the best cook in the whole world. She read us the best stories. She was friends with everyone - every once in a while, some random person asks me if I am Carolyn's daughter because they say I look like her. There are tears and there's conversation, and I am so happy to have found someone else who knew my mom. She always got out the silver and linen for holiday meals. Christmas was wonderful. My mom was wonderful. Wonderful and perfect.
I miss my mom, and I just want her back, goddammit.