I Never Thought I’d Pity My Mom for Dying

After losing my mom when I was fourteen, going through big life milestones can really run the gamut of “I wish she could be here for this” to “I can’t believe how long I’ve been crying in this Trader Joe’s parking lot.”

The fact of the matter is, there are a lot of things that I have, and will, miss out on. It’s hard not to dwell on all of the birthday parties, getting my license, graduating college, my first commercial that ran on TV, and getting to marry a woman who reminds me of her in a thousand different ways. The usual space that I compartmentalize the loss of my mom is one of “this absolutely sucks for me.”

Which, I mean obviously, it does. That feels like an understatement, to be honest. Because it more than absolutely sucks.

But in the last twenty two months, with the addition of a daughter who has shaken me to my very core, my life has changed a lot. The way in which I am so cavalierly head-over-heels in love with that fourteen-toothed, chubby-cheeked baby is borderline insane. If I start looking at pictures of her on my phone, it disrupts entire chunks of my day. If I think about her for too long while I’m alone in the car, I end up crying my way down the highway. And if she smiles at me with that absurd little smirk, there is nothing else in my world that matters. Which has brought me to a very new and strange place in my grief.

I feel sorry for my mom.

It’s not like I’m some huge prize or anything, but if my mom felt even 1/10th of what I feel for Merrow Amelia (named in honor of that very woman), then I can’t imagine what it would feel like to miss out on watching me grow up. If you told me I would lose a single day with that little girl it would break me into a million pieces. But if you told me that I’d only get to see her barely grow into a teenager, it would ruin me. And knowing my mom, there’s a chance she felt it even stronger. Her capacity for love stays unmatched by almost any person I’ve ever met.

Right now, my daughter is endless potential, in so many different ways. There is the potential for greatness, and an incredible life. The potential for heartache and growth. The potential of an artist, a scholar, or someone who wraps up her identity in ways that I can’t even yet imagine. And to not know what that turns into, that feels like the worse punishment you could hand down.

So, for the first time in a long time, my grief is no longer selfish. It’s no longer centered around missing my mom, and missing the force she would be in my life. That all still exists, and always will, but I dare to say my grief might have actually grown up a little. Matured. Once I had a kid of my own, I found an empathy for an early death that I didn’t know existed.

There isn’t much I can do about it. No amount of pity will bring my mom back and insert her into all of those memories I made in the last eighteen years. No amount of understanding will cushion the blow from the next time a milestone comes along and I’m dragged back into that darkness I felt, curled up in that ambulance so many years ago.

Nothing changes.

But a huge quest in my adult life has been trying to understand who my mom was. What made her tick, and what parts of me- and Merrow- keep on ticking. And any new empathy, any new understanding of what it must have felt like when she got sick; when she had to share that news with her children; when she found out she couldn’t guarantee forever… it feels like progress, for whatever that’s worth.

So while I am well aware that nothing changes, at the very least I can let my mom teach me more lessons. And that’s why every minute I get with Merrow means so much to me.

I can’t guarantee how much potential I’ll be around for. But I can make sure that as long as I’m here, I never turn down an opportunity to see that potential turn into something more.