Quiet Before the Storm

Tomorrow is a pivotal date for me. It is the anniversary of the day my world came to a shocking excruciating end. It's been forty-one years and you think it wouldn't alter my day like this, but it does.

It's the reason I use broken scissors, torn cookbooks, and sixty year old thread ... because you touched them. It's the reason I won't close the pool early because when I'm in it, it reminds me of Florida, of you. It's the reason I have trouble sharing my kids, grand kids more than the norm. Maybe when the greatest thing is stolen from you at an early age it makes you punchy. While others wonder if their teenager ran out of gas if running late, I fight visions of decapitation or terrorist activity. Freaky but true.

There is a unique camaraderie among motherless daughters. It's not possible to explain it or expect anyone else to understand. Those who grew up without their mom or in some ways never grew up are in a state of perplexity. I can hardly remember a time when I didn't share joyous occasions with sorrow. It just shows up...lurking, piercing. In the bad times you need her. In the good times you miss not being able to share them with her. Life is a bit more fuzzy and uncertain.

If only I knew it would have been the last time I would see you, I would have waited until you were out of the bathroom to kiss you goodbye. I think about that often. Did I not want to miss the bus to school? Did I want to hang out at the bus stop early with friends? I Can't remember the pathetic, haunting reason. I just know it's forever regretted. I close my eyes sometimes and think about the days before you died. The memories are so fragile and scarce. Yet I still try.

I attempt to explain to young girls how precious it is to have their mom. Not a mother figure, a mother! I tell them not to dis her, disrespect her, or be embarrassed by her. If a girl lives to be a hundred years old, I say, there will never be times more important then these. The times when she was protected, cherished, and bragged on. Those days were short for me. And when lost they never reappear. Never.

So today, I want to tell you mom that missing you is my occupation. Full time. Like housework, I may "think" it is done, but in reality it's never really done. Growing up as a motherless daughter has made me forever odd in a world that plays by a different set of rules.  Four decades you lived, four decades I have lived without you. You were and will always be my world. The world that once was. The quiet before the storm.

I suppose your absence  made me quite strong ... and weak.

I love you,
Debbie.