Happy Birthday Mom.

Today would have been my mother’s 58th birthday. She died of lung cancer not quite 4 years ago. She was a remarkable woman, my mother. She worked most of my childhood, but I can never recall a time she wasn’t there for me or my sister. We miss her.

On her first birthday after her death, I went to the cemetery, roses for her gravesite in hand. She had picked the cemetery in Columbus, Ohio—because Columbus was where her life began and where she met my father. She also said it was because Riverside Methodist Hospital could be seen from her gravesite, and she would feel better knowing that I was close by, I worked there at the time. I went alone, and as I got out of the car, I realized I couldn’t find her exact gravesite as the marker was not up yet. I sat under a tree, flowers next to me, and cried. I don’t know how long I sat there, but the poor man cutting the lawn made 2 passes before he gave up and left me alone. My husband showed up then, a gift from God, I think, and gently showed me where the grave was. I placed the roses over the site and saw the plant from my uncle. “Happy birthday, sis” was all it said.

The thing I grieve for the most, is that my mother will never know my children and vice versa. My oldest son knew her for his first 3 ½ years, but his memories of her are hazy. When I think of the relationship they would have had when he was older, I get so angry that she is no longer here. My younger two will never know the unconditional love of a grandmother.

What a grandmother she was!! All Hayden would have to do was ask for cookies for breakfast, and that’s what he would get. Stay up late? No problem. Watch TV in bed? Sure. My husband and I would joke we’d have to “deprogram” Hayden when he returned from Grandma and Grandpa’s house. She would have given anything to take him to Disney World, but ran out of time.

I have so many questions for her. Questions that I never thought to ask. “What was I like at age 5, 6, 7?” “Should I hold Hayden back before sending him to kindergarten?” Every time I need her, it’s like I have to realize that she’s not here and I grieve again. I’ll go weeks and be OK and then something happens and it’s almost as if the pain is as intense as when she first died. Everything I’ve read says this is normal, that grief is not a linear process, but one with peaks and valleys. My sister, father, and I all have gone to pick up the phone to call her only to put it down, the realization setting in.

To my mom on her 58th birthday, you are missed.