The day after Mothers Day…

Grief comes in waves, but it lasts forever. It changes, but it’s still there. Mom died in June 2022, but for the past few months, I’ve missed her more than ever.

Some people say I look like Mom. Sometimes, when I’m dressing, I catch just a glimpse of that. In her later years, Mom got a perm every four months. Shortly before she died, my hair began to curl. At first, I blamed the anesthesia I got when I had my shoulder replaced in the spring of that year, but it kept getting curlier. Now, it seems to kink more by the day. It takes on a look that resembles my mom’s just after I’d arranged it before she began her day.

Without my ash-blonde highlights, my hair would look like Mom’s — almost white in the front, with a sprinkling of silver through the rest. I’m afraid to let it go because I’d scare myself every time I passed a mirror.

I’ve started blowing my hair straight.

I’ve gone to my jewelry armoire and taken out pieces that meant something to Mom. I have my great-great-grandmother’s wedding band, a tiny little yellow gold band with inset diamond chips, two of them missing, and Mom’s original engagement ring and band. My oldest great-niece wears her upgraded set from the 70’s. Mom’s eternity band fits my right hand. I wear it sometimes. I hold her gold bracelets in my hand to warm them. I can’t wear them until the clasps are repaired.

Most of Mom’s never-ending collection of costume jewelry was sold in the estate sale after I removed a few pieces and sets that I remembered from childhood, things that she continued to wear until her passing. A blue and light blue rhinestone brooch and earrings set, another with settings of various hues of gold, and her Christmas brooches are safely tucked away.

I have some of her dreamcatchers in the kitchen window, and I’m thinking about hanging the rest of them. She strung them in the apartment windows and on the arms of her Rollator, Dolly.

I often shower with Mom’s favorite fragrance, Pure Grace by Philosophy, which our dear friend Neil gave her for Christmas in 2019. Sometimes, I spritz with the half-bottle left of her Pure Grace body spray.

I told my nail technician how Mom’s nails were so beautiful and that she even did them herself until her last year or so.

Then we discussed how the older ladies knew how to dress, apply makeup, and accessorize themselves with jewelry, even when they were only getting their toes done. I told her how Mom would get up every morning, do her hair and makeup, choosing which red lipstick to wear that day. She was never without red lipstick. Oh, she tried deep coral and fuschia and all shades in between, but Revlon Red was her standard.

Mom had the most magnificent walking stick that she used before she had her knee surgery. I can’t remember where she got it, but I do remember that she told me. It was handmade by some man in Gainesville, I think, or maybe it was Cookeville. I don’t know where that treasure is, but I think of Mom every time I grab some sort of stick to walk the rock path downhill to my fish pond.

I think of Mom every time I see trout on a restaurant menu. She always ordered fish. I try to cook green beans like Mom’s, but they don’t taste the same. Mom made a banana cake every year for Christmas. She even baked one for my son Jade’s birthday. I’ve made banana cake, but not like Mom’s, using a recipe from my dad’s mother, Effie Blair. Mom’s actually tasted like Mammy Blair’s, and that was a hard thing to accomplish. I may try to bake one again.

Mama loved to sing and play the piano. She thought she and I sounded great together. I’d be the soprano, and she the alto. After years of asthma and inhalers, I am now the alto. I have never parted with a music box my mom bought for me, so I have an extensive collection. The one I wind most often is the one that plays Wind Beneath My Wings.

Mom was always so proud of me. If I sang at an event, she was there to quietly cheer me on. I played the lead, Sgt. Sarah Brown, in our high school’s production of Guys and Dolls. Mom and Dad had moved to Billings, Montana, to shepherd an old Baptist Church there. I tried to talk Mom and Dad into coming for the production, but they said they could only afford to go once and that they intended to be there for graduation. I wish I had insisted they come for Guys and Dolls.

I did so many things that Mom didn’t get a chance to do. She married at fourteen (almost fifteen) and gave birth to my brother Denny a year later at fifteen (nearly sixteen). She was eighteen when I was born. Her whole life was given freely to support Dad, facilitate his goals, and encourage him. She was somewhat militant in her role, especially as a pastor’s wife. She was never sorry for her early start, but she told me once she missed having girlfriends like I did.

Mom’s best girlfriend after she and Dad moved back to Tennessee was my Aunt Bessie, Dad’s youngest sister, nine years Mom’s junior. They talked every Saturday morning, sometimes for hours. My Aunt Bessie started to decline in the months after Mom was gone and died soon after. Things just weren’t the same.

She did not neglect her education. She had graduated from 8th grade at thirteen, and when Mom and Dad married, she taught him to read. When he attended high school at Harrison-Chilhowee, she helped him with his homework. She studied and passed her GED exam. She studied alongside him at Tennessee Tech, Cumberland, and Belmont colleges. Meanwhile, she enrolled in night business classes, taking Denny or me with her, whichever one was available. Her first office job was at an insurance company in San Francisco. She commuted across the Golden Gate Bridge from Mill Valley, where we first lived, and later worked in several Sears locations in the West.

And when Denny and I were both out of the house, she owned her own business.

She was always an avid reader and kept up with news and current issues. I loaded up her Kindle with romances and literary novels. And God love her, she kept a diary.

I believe I was Mom’s best friend. I think she loved me more than she loved herself. But I never had a one-on-one relationship with her until my father died. She became my most vocal supporter, my most learned elder, and a girlfriend who loved to go on drives to pick up items I’d bought on Marketplace. Oh, the places we would go!

And the laughter. Every day, we found something to cause us to bend over, wipe joyful tears, or pee. Mom wore Depends, but there were times I didn’t make it to the bathroom.

I don’t wear red and don’t want to look like Mom. In personality, I have never been like Mom; I have always been much more like my daddy. Maybe it took us a while to bond one-on-one. And now I’m somehow empty without her next door.

Maybe you miss your mama, too.

***

Years ago, I was the assisting minister on Mother’s Day and wrote this prayer.

Father, we praise you on this special observance of Mother’s Day. We thank you for showing us your creative, nurturing, loving side, which we naturally associate with motherhood. We are reminded that while you do seem to bless our mothers abundantly with those special gifts, you offer those same gifts to all as we learn to live by your example. 

We give you thanks for our mothers, and we know that the unconditional love they give us could only come from you. We ask your special watch over those soon-to-be mothers, and we beg your healing and comfort for those who struggle to conceive. We invite your wisdom and reconciliation for those who find themselves with children and aren’t truly ready to be mothers;  in your wisdom, bring them to a true soul-blessing through whatever path you design. We are grateful for adopting mothers. We thank you for “stand-in” mothers, the ones who are just like mothers to us. We pray for your guidance for mothers in difficult situations, and we ask for consolation for those who have lost their mothers, whether through death or separation. 

All these things we ask in your name,

Amen.