Mother's Day, When Your Mom Is Gone

LONG ISLAND, NY — I was in CVS yesterday, waiting for a prescription, when I heard the woman in line ahead of me respond to the question about the year she was born.

"1940," she said.

And suddenly everything inside of me was ripped open again, as if it were yesterday and the wounds were still raw with loss. My mother, Doris Rabidoux, was born on September, 12, 1940, and in the years since I lost her, when she was just 53, I have spent my own life searching.

Searching crowds for faces like hers, for eyes with just that same dancing light. Listening for the peal of her laughter. Watching her favorite movies and listening to Chris de Burgh, his "Lady in Red" her favorite song.

When I heard the woman say the year, 1940, I stared at her. Was that how my mother would look now, today, if she weren't frozen forever in time and in my memories? Would she have a neat, sensible, short haircut now or would her hair still be long and blonde? Would she have on one of her outrageous outfits, her bright sweaters with sequins and sparkles, or would she have calmed with age and worn something more traditionally fitting for a woman who would be turning 82 in September?

82. I can't imagine it, no matter how hard I try. When I last saw my mother she was 53, younger than I am now. She was still working full-time for the Bank of Bermuda. She loved Chinese auctions, QVC, her little parakeet, Fifi, and her collection of 45s, especially Elvis.

And she loved Christmas. Oh, how my mother loved Christmas. She shopped all year, so that by the time Christmas morning came, there were literally piles of gifts around the tree for me, her only child.

My mother decorated a Christmas table at her office every year and after she died, they kept that table for a long time. At her funeral, her friends from work brought, not flowers, but a tiny potted Christmas tree, decorated with lights and ornaments. My mother would have loved that.

Before she died, on that cruel August day, she'd been shopping, even though it was painful and she needed a wheelchair — this was before the internet or even cell phones, so shopping was done in person and required stamina that she just didn't have, not anymore. But still, she went shopping so that one last time, there would be Christmas gifts under my tree, wrapped by her, with tags that read, as always, "Love, Mommy."

I stared at that woman in CVS and finally, mustered up the courage to say the words. "Excuse me," I said. "Did you say you were born in 1940?"

She nodded.

"That's the year my mother was born. I so often wonder what she would look like now. I lost her when she was just 53," I said, my voice catching on the tears that were threatening. Still, even now, so many years later, the tears are just a word, a memory, away.

She looked at me, her eyes filled with sad understanding. "Cancer?"

Yes, I told her. Cancer. That one word that said everything about how a vivacious, dancing woman who loved to laugh and sing was suddenly stripped of her spirit, her life force — ravaged by the disease that left her painfully thin, her mouth so raw that she couldn't eat anything I tried to cook, to entice her to eat. Not even her favorite, the Thanksgiving stuffing she taught me to make herself. It was what she'd asked for, on that sweltering hot August day when I said, "Mommy, isn't there something I can make for you?"

She wanted the stuffing. So I went to the store and back to my apartment, in that suffocating heat, and tried, my hands shaking, to cook the stuffing exactly how she liked it, the celery and onions translucent, just right. But I was crying, rushing to get back to her, and when she tasted it, I knew the celery pieces weren't soft enough, easy enough for her to chew.

Still, she told me it was the best stuffing she'd ever tasted. I knew then that it was the last meal I'd ever make for my mother.

That poor woman in the CVS, I could tell that she was eager to move on, to get out of the store and on with her life. A life likely filled with daughters and grandchildren and the husband that the sales clerk had mentioned.

She likely has plans for Mother's Day, that woman with the nicely cut jacket and salt-and-pepper hair, plans for a nice brunch, maybe — and definitely, she'll be getting cards or giving them to her own girls, signed, "Love, Mom."

Mother's Day, when your own mother is gone, is a minefield of emotions. Yes, I have been blessed with my own child, my precious son. And he's made Mother's Day wonderful in all the years since she died, when he was just a year old.

But still. Since my mother and then, my grandmother, died, I, like all who know this awful road of loss, avoid card stores. They are simply too painful. I've never again gone out to Mother's Day brunch. The sight of all the mothers and daughters laughing and eating and opening gifts is gut-wrenching.

They say time makes it easier, but for me, that just isn't true. Different, yes. But easier, no. Every Mother's Day, I want more than anything to be buying a card, wrapping a gift — how my mother loved presents — making a reservation for a fancy dinner.

Mostly, I want to just talk to her, my mother. Tell her what's happened since she's been gone. I was just 29 then. I can't even remember that person I was, before she died. A person who laughed easily, who had the luxury of faith in a future that seemed endless. Until it wasn't, not anymore. A girl who could fail, could make mistakes, because she had her mother and mothers always pick up the pieces, mend the broken hearts, listen to the stories.

Without her, and later, without my grandmother, I was a new mother, alone. I had to learn to build up the walls, the defenses, to become strong and to keep going, no matter how hard it was or how much it hurt — because now, I had my own baby, my own child to raise.

Despite the sadness, though, there was also the joy, because the traditions, the love they instilled in me, all of it came pouring out as I raised my own son. I taught him to make the Thanksgiving stuffing, my grandmother's Norwegian krumkaker. And oh, how we love Christmas, my mother's Department 56 Christmas village still decorating our home, a collection that we add to ever year as we make our own memories.

There is beauty in the remembering, that's true. But there is always, always this nagging, aching sense of "what if?"

And seeing that woman in the CVS, it brought it all back so vividly. I had a million questions for her; what had it felt like to be born in 1940 and turn 60? 75? How had the world changed since she was a girl? Was she happy?

But I didn't know her, and in her eyes, I was a stranger. Just some middle-aged mom with the heart of a young woman, desperately searching forever for her own mother. Scanning every crowd for that familiar smile, those dancing brown eyes.

I picked up the prescription and left the store, careful to avoid the greeting card section. As I headed to my car, I realized maybe it was a sign, if you believe in those things. Maybe my mother sent that woman into my path to tell me that it was okay, that she was still with me in all the ways that matter.

That she knows how much I miss her and that she misses me, too.

Maybe she was trying to tell me that no matter how much time has passed, she still loves me.

Because one thing is certain, that love we shared, it lives forever in my heart, my memories, and in every story I tell about the woman who shaped all that I am and will ever be.

And this Mother's Day, I will remember my own mother, born in 1940, and be forever grateful for every single day we had together. Those were the days that meant everything.

Happy Mother's Day, Mommy. I will love you forever.