I Remember

For my mother--10 years of Remembering

Where did you go?

I remember when you were here,

with the smell of gardenias, a calm voice outside my room, a sorrow that tempered

my struggles.

I remember.

I remember when you were here,

with a boldness that gave me strength, a goodness that gave me integrity,

a steady hand that taught me how to suffer.

I remember.

I remember when you were here,

with a belief that exposed possibility, a wonder that revealed intelligence,

a curiosity that aimed me at the stars.

I remember.

I remember when you were here,

with a love that surpassed all understanding, a faith that grew within me a mighty

tree that no storm has yet to fell.

I remember.

I remember when you were here,

empty and alone, and I could not save you—poured out of all the strength, the

good, the curious, the faithful—til only longing remained.

I remember.

I remember when you emptied yourself and gave all you had to your children.

I remember.

Now I tell the truth. I work hard. I keep the faith.

Because I remember.

For a long time, I thought I had something to live up to, some standard that hung above my head like a goal I could never reach. When our parents die, their expectations should die with them, but they don’t. My mother was my best friend. No one has ever come close, except my own daughter. Just being able to say that brings me more joy than I can convey with simple words. My mother’s gift to me seemed to be the honesty and trust between us. If my daughter feels even a fraction of that closeness, I’ve done okay.

We all romanticize what is lost to us. Reflecting now, a decade from that moment, I still cannot say whether she would know me now. I doubt my mother would recognize me. I have fallen. I have strayed from the path she illumined. I have hated. I have coveted. I have lost myself and come home again. I have burned and been reforged. I have walked through fire and had nothing but the faith she instilled within me to keep me from the abyss. We burn. We suffer. But it is not an end. There seems to be no end to the suffering possible on this Earth. How we carry it, how we arrive at the other side of the pain and the agony that this broken existence offers is what truly shapes us. The loss of my mother taught me to see the loss in each of us. I can see pain now, in every face I meet. We all carry it. We all mourn—for something, someone.

For a decade, I have avoided pictures of my mother, kept them in boxes and bags hidden in closets. For a decade, I have turned away from the pain I see in others’ eyes, the sorrow that finds a friend in my own suffering. I have slowly come to accept that this pain I carry—it connects me to others. It does not isolate me. Grief tries to lie to us. It tells us we are alone. We are. Yet, we can never be. You remember the things that made you strong and proud and grateful. You remember the people that showed up and gave you stability and love. You are never so alone as when you refuse to thank those who helped form your being. We do not exist in a vacuum. We detach, even as Christians, we detach from the things that should haunt us. Survival sings a very insistent tune.

Ten years. An entire decade of running from pain and crippling sorrow that turns to agony the instant you give it voice.

I want to take my sorrow in my arms and make it a part of me. I want to take my pain and throw it into the ocean where my mother and I stood. I want to be free of this burden.

It never goes away. And it never should.

Her strength made me a stone.

Her faith gave me roots.

Her love made me permeable.

Thank you, mother.

May your memory be Eternal.