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Today my mother would have turned 70.
I can imagine her at 70. She would have loved the senior discounts and taking Amtrak every opportunity she could. She would have still made long road trips, driving whatever beatup car she has at the time from her home in Clearwater to make the rounds up north. Although she hated winters in the northeast, she would have made an exception to come back for the birth of her second great-grandchild. She would have loved the historic parts of where we’re working now, in Coshocton, and made me go for breakfast at Jerry’s diner and for mid-day pie and coffee at the English Ivy.
But none of this is happening.
I’m alone today, and I’m throwing myself a huge pity party, wallowing in all the might-have-beens. Working on these sections of the book that are about my mother-daughter relationship have exacerbated the feelings. I spent much of yesterday writing and crying. I will spend much of today doing the same.
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When Kurt comes home and can tell it’s been one of those days, I like to say that crying is simply the body’s way of relieving the sinus passages and clearing out a lot of toxins. After all, I’ve been exercising hard and drinking lots of water. There’s nothing like a good cry to flush your system. When he calls me on my b.s., I move to the next way to avoid comfort:
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I’ll get over it.
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In the meantime, I’m letting these emotions have their time. I’m allowed to be sad. I’m allowed to be angry.
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I’m angry at cancer, angry that she’s gone, angry that I can’t stop being angry, angry that I have nobody I’m comfortable talking with about it.
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Except, apparently…all of you.
Isn’t it funny how I am not able to maintain close friendships, but I can put some of the hardest stuff on a piece of paper? I think I chose writing because it does seem to be the only place I can put myself out there. Yet writing is probably the worst career choice for someone with emotional baggage, because you’re alone so much.
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I’ve developed good discipline in my writing since getting my MFA. I get up, attend to my daily fitness, then write, read writing-related items and revise or edit for 6 hours.
And in doing so, I’m alone with my thoughts all day.
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Mom would have called me to see how I’m doing today. She would have asked how I’m coping without her, and tried to give me ways to make the pain less, make the loneliness less.
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Mom wasn’t a perfect mother. I don’t think any mother is. Doesn’t each person bring their own hangups and issues into their relationship with their children, especially mothers with daughters?
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But she was incredible at friendship. Sometimes I think it’s why I’m so bad at it. I watched the way she maintained her relationships with her closest friends and it looked exhausting. She was always praying for one of them, calling to talk with them about something they were going through. Someone was always coming over for coffee or advice, and she stopped her own busy life to give them her time.
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And however much nagging she did, or whatever our differences, she called every day. She remembered names of my friends, dates of my miscarriages, details of so many areas of my life that felt at the time to be so intrusive.
Details that would be so welcome in these five years of loneliness since she’s been gone.
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All my life I’ve had friendships come and go. Kurt is the only one I’ve let in completely. People assume because I’m so social that I have a lot of friends. I know a lot of people, have a lot of acquaintances and even have some people I call friends. But I really only have one close friend, and he’s working 10-12 hour days.
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I know it’s up to me to solve this loneliness issue. There are a lot of lessons I could take from my mother. She enjoyed solitude more than anyone. Part of it was her discomfort in social situations. Part of it was just that she learned from a young age how to enjoy being alone.
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I don’t want anybody to call me. I hate talking on the phone, and Mom and Kurt have been the only exceptions. I don’t want anybody to do anything, actually. I just needed a moment to vent, to wallow, to miss her, albeit poorly and publicly. And I will…get over it, or get used to it, or learn to shut up about it.
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This has to be the worst birthday tribute ever. What did I learn? I was a shitty daughter? I already knew that. That I suck at friendship? I also knew that, and it hasn’t changed. I suck at loneliness and being alone. Maybe that’s improving? At least it makes for productive writing (and I don’t just mean this insipid blog).
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Maybe it isn’t about learning anything, but just remembering, sharing, connecting through writing in a way I can’t in person, in an email, on a phone.
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Maybe all this should have been a different post. Maybe it should have been the following sentences…
Today my mother, Mary Jo (Work) Sink/Mackey would have been 70. She was an incredible friend to so many people, a dedicated teacher and one of only two people who knew me deeply enough to push beyond my bubbly exterior to the truth of me. She tried to be the first teacher in space and in hindsight we were grateful she didn’t get that ride. She was fiercely independent and instilled that in each of her children. She survived losing both her parents within a few short years while raising her own children as a single mother after her own husband left her for another woman. She didn’t have time to grieve the relationship or his death a few years later because she worked full-time as a teacher and part-time as church janitor while raising me. When she finally got to retirement age, finally got her home in the Florida sunshine, she got pancreatic cancer and died.
There’s the anger again.
I have no idea what the moral of this story is. That she impacted a lot of people for the better? True.
Would I trade all that positive impact to have her be here now? Yes. I would screw over every one of you that she helped so that I could have my mother again.
Because in the end, I’m selfish. I’m self-centered. I can’t see, feel or imagine beyond the pain of one moment to focus on anything else.
She wouldn’t be proud of that statement, but after criticizing me for being so childish and self-centered and arrogant, she would forgive me for it, love me for it, talk to me non-stop about how to pray over it and do something helpful for somebody else to make it better.
Some days I think my obsessive giving is the only way I know how to compensate for incessant self-absorption. But no amount of willingness to trade the positive impact she made in exchange for her being here now will make that happen.
The world spins. Time moves forward. And today sucks. I don’t want to get over it.
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