Life Without Mother

Dear Mom,

I know it’s been three weeks since I last wrote. Much has happened. A much needed visit home where I was able to reconnect with Dad and Hope especially. I had been unintentionally pushing them away because attached to them were memories of you and whereas you, Dad and Joel were able to build daily new memories together in a new house after Annette’s death, I can only make occasional new memories in the same home, surrounded by a house filled with your lingering presence. I was able to voice this to Dad who helped me see the connection between pushing them away and missing you. And I was able to truly talk to Hope. Not just small talk or fun, but deep talking, tapping into the emotions that she doesn’t always express or know how to enunciate. I had the privilege of seeing her heart and some of her hurt and could finally be the big sister she’s needed to pull that pain out of her as someone did for me and to encourage her through it. Her 17th birthday is next Thursday and I can hardly believe it! You wouldn’t be able to either, Mom, if you were here. She’s grown so much in just the past two months of having to do life without you there after school each day and being there for Mary Faith. I’m so proud of her! But I know it will be hard whether she recognizes it or not because it’ll be the first birthday without you there to sing “Happy Birthday” with us and to give her a hug.
Today marks 6 months since the day you went to be with Jesus. Needless to write, it has been difficult to say the least. Sometimes I feel fine, but then days like today come and I just wonder when I’ll ever be okay. I know all of the cliches that “it takes time” and “it’s okay to not be okay,” etc. but that doesn’t keep me from becoming angry with myself. Fortunately I have a wonderful friend here at school who helps me keep my sanity by her patience wanting to understand the what and why of all I’m feeling. So I was able to elaborate to myself through talking to her (you know, like how I used to use you as a sound board for all of that homework and such not that long ago). My anger was primarily towards myself. Anger that I was angry at myself for feeling pain and not just being my usual joyful self (which, being cyclical, only caused more anger). Anger that I wouldn’t allow myself to feel my pain or try harder to feel it. Anger that I sometimes just want to be justified in being a victim of this awful situation while others have it worse.
My friend helped me to see that there were many Biblical instances of godly people crying out to God in pain and anger—even Jesus Himself asking God to take this cup from Him as He faced the cross—and that it isn’t selfish to be in pain or to be angry. She also told me that trying to “validate” my pain by comparing it to others does not lessen the fact that I’m in pain. That is merely Satan’s way of keeping me from experiencing what would draw me nearer to God as He comforts me in my brokenness. I’ve come to realize through all of these six months that that brokenness is what is essential to our lights shining even brighter. That brokenness not only allows God in, but Jesus out so that in our moments of hurt, people see the one thing that holds us together.
God is the only reason I am still here. I won’t deny it. There is so much pain this world surrounds me with that makes me tired on a day to day basis. It’s a struggle just to get out of bed in the morning (or afternoon, depending on which day it is). But even in my bed I am unsafe from the hurt within. The feeling of loss, of heartbreak that I could never have imagined without going through it personally. That piece of my heart I used in hugging you and telling you “I love you” and you filled with every “I love you, too” and hug in response is no longer utilized. A piece of my heart only half-way working. This is what heartbreak from loss feels like. An ache that never goes away—only ignored on a minute by minute basis for the sake of getting through the day without completely falling apart. Then the moments when I can fall apart, few and far between, scare me as my heart feels like it’s constricting itself in it’s response to the pain of not having you here, the thought of my sisters not having you like I did for their senior year of high school, the confusion of why God allowed this to happen, and the fear of a future without you.
That second part of my anger, my anger toward God, was mainly because Hope and Mary Faith won’t get to know you like I did. My senior year brought many binding moments for you and me, moments that they will never get. Moments when I could finally understand your pain after Annette’s death as I read your journals, when you told me the truth behind your depression and everything that happened that hectic year, when you and I shared choir and college excursions and you involved yourself in every aspect of my life, treasuring up those moments for when I’d leave—who would have thought I would be the one having to hold on to them tight?
I fear the girls will just never know you like I did or share the precious memories of who you are, not just what we did, and that is what really makes me cry out to God: “Why? Why would you take away the woman who did so much for us at a time instrumental in their growth? They’ll never have the same appreciation or desire to know her because it will be someone else helping them through this time in their lives.” And even if they did want to know how you felt about certain things and why you were the way you were, will I have the ability to adequately convey all you were? They will only have my perception.
I miss you an awful lot, Mom.

Your daughter,
Hannah