MIRIAM: One thing about losing my mom is that she was like air and water to me. She had always been there in my life and, despite being a mother of many children, she never let me down when I needed her.
There’s another layer to it, though. She did so much invisibly that her absence now has been that much more of a shock.
Mom had the obvious responsibilities, like the shopping, meals, and housework. But what she also gave us was curiousity about the world, empathy for others and ourselves, and a voice always ready to sing. At church, she was a teacher and hymn conductor, but also she could really see people with an uncanny ability to understand and love them.
I grew up with an LDS mother who was always the helper but never the owner of the work. She kept the house together but Dad had the final word. She made beautiful programs and lessons happen at church, but priesthood leaders had to approve it all, in one way or another.
I wish I could have seen my mom come into her own more, be herself more without a thought to others, speak her opinions more, seek her own happiness more.
She did each of those things to varying degrees, I think, but, if I outlined each with borders, then I’d see they are borders I am now crossing in my own life. And therefore, where I am is the frontier to me. I suppose it’s a universal truth that all children get to these frontiers where there is no path worn by their parents.
But the church never taught me how to be part of a complete family without a father at its head. Yet, here I am. It never taught me how to be the full-time caregiver who also worked. Instead, I grew up an expert at compromise, submission, and obedience. Mom was my model. But now I have to figure out how to make unilateral decisions, know my priorities, and make the rules myself.
I would very much have liked to tell her all about this frontier and have her hold my hand as we walked it together. I would have liked to see her laugh at it, get angry about it, maybe even lecture about it.
I say I would like it, but that’s the worst part. I don’t know if I ever would have grown enough to appreciate all that before she died. As she was, she was my air and water, remember?
However, I try to imagine my children in my shoes after I’m gone, wishing I had been fully me, and then I can be brave now.
And that’s when I realize that, actually, that invisibility is two-directional. Just like a small child not understanding, I didn’t see, and sometimes she knew I didn’t see when I needed to see. And just like all of us, sometimes she didn’t see either, and sometimes she didn’t know.
But that didn’t stop her love.
I had to leave an abusive marriage that tore my world apart. The courage to leave came from one foundational principle: I am of worth.
The Young Women’s motto I repeated every Sunday offered this to me in theory, but my mother’s consistent care made it real. She was my sounding-board and comfort.
Our last phone conversation was a video call. I could see the tubes helping her breathe. Her words were careful, given with effort. I could sense her pain and exhaustion. But she was happy to speak to me, and she reiterated one final time in support: you deserve better. You. Are. A. Person.
It has been difficult since her passing. Beyond her absence, there has been one crisis after another in my life. And yet we had so many conversations that I can still almost converse with her now. I can anticipate what she would say, and I know how she would make me feel.
How can a mother say things when her children are not ready to hear? She says them over and over but in a million ways, so that, when she’s gone and they’re ready, their memories of her carry them forward in time, beyond who she was, until they finally hear her and can be brave.
This my mother did.
~~Miriam~~
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