Four Years

The one remembering my mom, and trying to be a mom.

Jul 25, 2024

*Print by San Diego artist, Tessie Pikula.*

Hey. Hi. Hello.

In the time since I last published an essay here, I had a baby and was sucked into the rip current that is new, first-time parenthood. It’s been almoooost four weeks at this point of riding the life-with-a-newborn rollercoaster and can I just say, it’s both easier and harder than I expected.

Someone asked me if I was going to write about my birth/delivery experience, and in a word, no. Most definitely I am not, at least not anytime soon. It was traumatic, and I say that without an ounce of drama or exaggeration in my voice, and while it was an experience with a happy ending for sure, it was most definitely not one I want to relive anytime soon, especially via an essay. Long story short, I (we) survived. I was happy as heck to get out of the hospital, five days and three blood transfusions later, and with the cutest little bestie I’d ever laid eyes on.

The reason I’m using a nap-time to say hi, though, is not to get into the weeds about having a baby. It’s because, whether I like it or not, the calendar has somehow arrived at the date that is settled into my bones, like paint in the cracks of a sidewalk. Whether I like it or not, as soon as July 1 rolls around, my body remembers. A ticking clocks turns on, counting down to what is now tomorrow, aka my mom’s deathiversary. My dark day, as I usually refer to it, and a reminder of the worst day of my life thus far. It’s somehow been four years since I stood in the hospital room with her, four years since I begged the nurse to keep trying to revive her. Four years since I ran crying out of the room after it was clear that my mom was no longer there on that hospital bed, even though I could still see her face, her hands, her body.

It’s taken me a really long time to be able to think of that day without immediately starting to cry, and longer really to reshuffle the images in my head so that the one of her in her hospital room on that night prior (aka yesterday), when I first saw her in person in the hospital, wouldn’t be the first one that popped into my head anytime I thought about my mom. I struggle even as I type this to erase that image from my brain, the flashback to seeing this person who looked nothing at all like what my mom should have looked like, looked nothing like I ever wanted her to look like. They say your brain tries to protect you, and memories shift and soften as the years go by, but even still, there is so much about the three days that culminated in her passing on the 26th of July with such excruciating detail that it breaks my heart over and over again to let myself sink back into those memories.

And this year, as you likely could have seen coming, I’m thinking about her a whole lot. This anniversary, this dark day, is going to look different than the last few. It’s coming less than a handful of weeks after I’ve become a mom myself — a personal milestone I had never thought would happen in my life, but one I thought most certainly my mom would be around for if it ever did. What’s that saying? Make plans and God laughs?

Sometimes I think to myself how 2020 took so much from me, and continues to. It is relentless, the missing.

Anyways, here I am, my emotions competing for which will lead the day tomorrow. Messiness is guaranteed And I’m still over here trying to figure out how to do what my mom did so seamlessly my whole life, but without her. Here I am, crying over my daughter’s head about how she’ll never meet one of the most important people I’ve ever known. Crying harder because hey, maybe she already did. I had that thought while in the hospital — that maybe my mom picked this baby out for me to begin with, because she knew I needed her.

That’s possible, isn’t it? Somehow, somewhere.

I’ve had a lot of moments in the last few weeks wondering if I can do this, this motherhood thing. Wondering if I’ll ever be good at it, or how long it’ll take for me to get the hang of it. Wondering if it’s strange that I didn’t see my daughter arrive and automatically feel that “mom” label newly applied to my chest. Instead, I’ve felt like I have no idea what I’m doing (a universal feeling for new parents, I hear), and thought to myself, “If only my mom was here.” If only I could call her and she could tell me what to do. If only she could tell me I’m doing a good job already. If only, if only. But of course, I can’t. I can try to feel for her in the dark, try to hear her words echoing from the past within my heart and my instincts, but I’ll never get those moments in real-time. I can’t text her cute photos of my baby like other women may, or call to tell her how scary my c-section was. She wasn’t there to hold my hand in the OR, or to hold my baby when I couldn’t. She never will, and I thought I’d feel angrier or more resentful about that than I do, but I suppose I saw it coming and did a decent enough job preparing myself for those feelings these last 10 months.

This year’s dark day, I’ll be taking care of this teeny human I’m now, inexplicably, responsible for (and you don’t even get a user guide, how ‘bout that!), and if I think too hard about the fact that my daughter will never get to hear my mom’s laugh or give her a hug or have her famous pancakes, I think I’ll scream. I swear I could flood this entire city with my tears without even trying.

I don’t feel like a mom, yet, and I don’t necessarily know that I understand how to be one, I suppose. Maybe that’s common for new parents, or maybe I’m just weird, I don’t know. But what I do know, at least, right down to my core, is how a mom should make you feel. I know what it feels like to be loved and supported by an incredible mother, to have someone in your corner who never stops clapping for you, never stops rooting for you to succeed, never stops loving you — no.matter.what. I know what all of that feels like and more, the hallmarks of a great mom — or at least my great mom — and so maybe, maybe that’s my way in to this figuring out this new role, even without having my mom in person by my side to teach me. Maybe I can do it, because I know what the end product should look like, the cocoon of love and support that it should build around this little girl who seems to have the same lips as me, as my mom. Maybe eventually, I’ll be able to hear my mom, whispering from somewhere far away, that I’m doing a good job after all.

So Many Somethings

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