Life Without Mother

Dear Mom,

I had a moment about a week ago. A sudden memory of you that made me catch my breath for about half of a second before I could shake myself back into the present. It was a sweet one. One that brought a smile to my face.

I have a new job, working at Starbucks again. But, unlike the one I worked at in midtown NYC, this one has a drive-thru window. While some of the tasks have come back like riding a bike (it’s been a little over a year since that year of working there), the drive-thru is a new challenge.

For example, I’ll have a headset on, taking orders while simultaneously doing any number of other tasks in the store. And there’s the matter of timing. I thought cafe orders had to be filled quickly — well, with drive-thru orders are expected to be ready by the time that car reaches the window from our speaker.

Anyway, the other day, I was positioned at the window (tendering orders and handing off items to the customers). My second time positioned there and I was greeting customers for a while — six hours straight — during which I even got a little sunburn on my left arm from the constant exposure at the window! (Now I’ve been joking about just holding my other arm out the window or wearing one long-sleeve down.)

I’m back in Texas, so many of my customers — particularly the women — will use those common terms of endearment (hon, darling, sugar, etc.) as we chit-chat or exchange pleasantries. And that’s when it hit:

A vision in my mind’s eye of you pulling up to the window, giving your payment and receiving your iced venti-something-or-another with a smile, and reciprocating my “Have a great day!” with a “You, too, love!”

I don’t remember you going to Starbucks often. Certainly not enough to know your drink of choice except that it would typically be a venti (which you’d even try to convince me to get on occasions when I’d just go for the grande size). Nor do I think you’d treat me in the window any different than any of my coworkers — as a matter of fact, it’d be the other way around. You’d see them all as your kids (the younger) or friends (the older) because I worked there. Because that’s what you did with my friends.

This memory came, I think, just in the new space of a new time. Another new thing you’re not a part of. And I do wish you could be. It’s a little more bittersweet that I’m back in Texas. This is the first time living here since you died. (I lived in Louisiana for school the first four years and then in New York the next five, barely being in Texas more than two weeks at a time on my visits.)

I feel like as much as it may seem I talk about you, I haven’t really talked about you as of late. And even this memory was not debilitating. Just unexpected. Sweet. It’s only been after that moment when I’ve had some other more difficult pinches of my heart over your absence.

So, I wanted to write you a letter, sharing this little memory I had of you. An incomplete one — rather more like little snapshots strung together.

And acknowledge more of such memories will likely come from seemingly nowhere, and it’s okay. I’m okay. I’m more than okay, Mom. Because I know where you are. And I know where I’m going. And, even more comforting, I know Who’s with me in this in-between.

Always your daughter,
Hannah