Life Without Mother

The road to which I am referring is not the proverbial path — though perhaps to some extent it could relate to such a path — No, the road less traveled in my case is a literal one. Preston Road to be exact. For those unfamiliar with the place I called my home for most of my childhood and youth, Preston Road extends as a spinal cord from which almost all of my weekly, if not daily, haunts could be reached. My church was the furthest I drove north on that road. I can’t exactly say how far south I traveled, though the most consistent boundary line was Highway 121 and Stonebriar Mall.

Of course, there were countless stops along the way: the CareNow for which Mom had an app on her phone (that she used all too frequently); the Goodyear where we always took our cars for oil changes and fix-ups and tire changes (next to which is the first four-way stop I encountered as a first-time driver by myself); the shops just before the mall where we went to eat and shop; the Canes where Mom got hooked to the three-finger combo and tried to get us kids hooked; the paint shop where we spent countless hours painting ceramics and where Mom finally conceded to apply for a position so she could be paid for the work that she already did there; the Hobby Lobby and Mardel to which we would often go in order to peruse the aisles (or make a beeline for the bargain books section); the many restaurants along the road where we would go for Sunday lunch after church as a family. So many memories down one long road. It is a road I know well, even after five years of changes and upgrades and new developments.

It is a road I no longer traverse. Except for days like today. Days when I make an oh-so-brief visit to dear girlhood friends.

What I’ve said thus far may seem irrelevant. But this evening is one I would like to process out in this space, if you’ll bear with me.

I crossed a threshold. It was a gradual one, only more poignant the moment I crossed the street on which I used to turn onto in order to return home. Then it was countless memories lined up in the storefronts I passed. The road I traversed. The van I drove. The music on the stereo to which I sang. Everything in this overwhelming reminder of someone I have not seen in almost five years.

I crossed the threshold into the place I last saw that person living, breathing, laughing, loving. A place in which I didn’t get a chance to create a new normal, and so remains this time capsule I enter every time I cross Highway 380. It is this feeling of nearly grasping the inaccessible. The remembrance of dreams that died with her. I thought someday that this would be the place I’d come home to. I thought this would be the hometown to which I’d introduce my college friends, my career friends, my future husband, my children. Point out all of the places where Mommy spent her childhood, where she broke her arm, where she learned to drive, where she learned that walking across busy streets wasn’t so scary — maybe living in a city where that is the norm isn’t so bad after all.

We had lived in that Frisco house for nine years at that point (having moved just before my ninth birthday) and with all of the discussions of future holidays and reunions in that house, I thought it would be home-base for years to come. It was the house where we all had our own rooms for the first time, and where Pop nearly fell through the ceiling and my own backside made a dent in the wall, and where I convinced my parents that garland around our banisters was a must for Christmas — after all, “why shouldn’t we decorate all-out for Jesus’s birthday?”

My family moved out of the house while I was away in Chicago during my second college summer. I had known they were planning it but honestly thought I would be there for the official move. Instead, I left the old house for Chicago and returned to the new house. It was another thing I wasn’t there for. Of course, I completely understand the timing and the fact that none of it was in my control. I think it was just one more change I wasn’t quite ready for. I never had the closure of one last look around my childhood home of twelve years. So, in subsequent visits to friends in the area, I often found myself driving down Eldorado, turning at that second entrance, and looping around the front of that house where I used to park my Nissan every day after school or work. I wonder what kind of memories are being made now. I hope happy ones. (I also chuckle at the thought that they likely will never know about the leg through the ceiling or the backside through the wall.)

But, tonight I didn’t turn onto Eldorado. I kept going. There is nothing for me there. Only a house. Only streets. Only a neighborhood that is likely filled with many more homes repurposed with new families. I know my true Home is Heaven with my Father — the same Home where Mom now rests at complete peace in all joy. But He has also blessed us with the bittersweet gift of glimpsing what that final belonging will feel like. Sweet because it is so joyous and peaceful with the lives lived, but bitter because these homes of brick and mortar are only temporary.

Tonight, the hardest part was driving past that Eldorado light. Leaving. Crossing the threshold back into a place and time that never knew Mom and will never know her. Filled with people who will never truly experience her this side of Heaven. It’s as though I leave her behind all over again. As though I have to once again say, “Goodbye,” to someone who was so instrumental in who I am today. Preston Trail marks the final crossing of the threshold, as I continue on past the turn-in for the church where I grew in my love for Jesus through worship and His word and fellowship.

All at once, I have stepped out of the past and toward my future. But the memory of the crossing remains. It is one that tries to sink me. To trip me. To keep me from looking ahead. To remember that feeling of saying “Goodbye,” instead of remembering that I will once again say, “Hello!”

There is a time for mourning. And, for me, that is even now the time. But, I also know that even as there is a definite time with the boundaries of a beginning and end, there is then a time of rejoicing. Just as much, these times have the propensity to overlap.

I am learning to feel things as they come. Not to be a slave to those feelings, mind you. Not to simply lie in bed all day every day because I don’t feel like anything there is to do is worth doing, but to get out of bed because God has given me breath this morning to glorify Him and make His name known. (And this is not to say that there are never times to lie in bed all day, because the Lord knows sometimes I do just need a day to physically rest.) But God has been showing me that His power is made perfect in my weakness. And that I am to not try to please man (even in the process of grieving), but to please God who tests my heart.* My journey of grief looks different from that of others. And when I’m not okay, I don’t have to have perfect responses to everyone at all times. His grace is sufficient for all circumstances.

The road I traveled today is a long one. And, truly, I’m still on the road. The proverbial one, that is. I know it will take me back into the place of memories, but it is also the road Home. And by God’s grace I will arrive a good and faithful servant.

Thank you for traveling with me, friend.

Forever His,
Hannah

*1 Thessalonians 2:4