News from Jules | 01.16.2023 | Not Perfect, but Human

Twenty years ago today my Mother died. Not just mine—she is the mother of three, the grandmother of four, the partner of one, the daughter of two, the sister and sister-in-law of six, the aunt of four, the best friend of many, the friend of thousands and the acquaintance of more than we’ll ever know.

And we each have our own connection to her.

Sure, she was alive. But she is—still—my Mom. Because relationships still exist, even if the people do not.

Just like Portland, Ore. will always be my hometown. It’s where I was born, where I was raised, where I eventually returned after college, and where I lived from 2005 until April 2022.

This year was my first time being “home for the holidays” in 20 years—which, coincidentally is the last time our nuclear family of five was all together for the holidays. A couple of weeks later on Jan. 16, 2003, our Mom died unexpectedly. She went in for a routine outpatient procedure, inexplicably stopped breathing in the recovery room, and then died after three days in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).

Over the years, this anniversary has come quietly-softly-gently sometimes and other times loudly-painfully-emotionally. Perhaps because it felt like two separate days: The last day we held our Mom’s soft, wrinkly hand. And the day we walked out of the ICU.

The first was a natural, inevitable parting, just like years later when I said goodbye to both of my Grandmothers. The second was a shocking loss of innocence that the impossible is actually possible.

As the past moves further into the background and I stay more grounded in the present what remains, and always will, is simply missing someone I love.

And just like grief, relationships don’t move in a line, they move in waves. The presence, the absence, the connection, the missing all ebb and flow in their own time. There are moments that matter more than whole years. And there are many years that happen in a moment. I have yet to find any actual meaning in the linear time—years, months, weeks, days, minutes. If only, that the more time that passes, the more wisdom flows.

So, yes, I have lived with the loss and grief for twenty years.

And I have also lived with empathy and compassion and forgiveness and peace—more every year—as I better understand my Mom’s reality as someone navigating thousands of relationships, not just with me.

Because my relationship with and to my Mom didn’t end when she died. I would argue it just began. And is still evolving.

That in trying to understand myself was a journey to truly understanding her with tiny breakthroughs over the years like shooting stars. I needed the distance to see the whole night sky. To see my Mom for what she was: human.

Cleaning out my storage unit last week, I came across a shoebox full of “Cards from Mom” that I thought I had already purged years ago. Leafing through the top of the stack, I randomly opened a printed e-mail dated April 14, 1998, describing what I have now come to fully understand.

My Mom’s own words (no edits, italics/bold emphasis added):

“During my high school years I cried myself to sleep HATING my parents, especially my dad-who was most like me, I continued crying my first year of college. Many a morning your father would pick me up for the drive into Boston with red swollen eyes because I had been fighting with my parents. I wrote volumes. I filled innumerable spiral notebooks with my venomous words. Yes, I, too, was a prolific writer with a passionate love of words. I wasted a lot of energy hating them. It didn’t help solve anything. I tell you this, or remind you if you already know, so you can understand that I have been there-where you are. Obviously I did not learn a lot for as they say, ‘history repeats itself’ In defense of my parents I have learned and now know that parenting is not easy. It is damned hard as is growing up. I don't hate my parents anymore. I spent a lot of time in Creative Initiative working out all that. I know they did the best they could do. Neither of them had decent role models, ergo, neither did I. When one chooses to become a parent it is really quite a blind decision or one with rosey colored glasses at best. You see some darling children that you sit for and what appear to be ideal parents and homes. That is only a small slice of that life of incredible responsibility.”

Not ideal. Not perfect. But human.

Not wife. Not mom. Not bookkeeper. Not PTA President. Kathy.

A self-aware, thoughtful, critical, complicated, sensitive, resilient person. Who I can deeply relate to.

Today came quietly-softly-gently after spending the weekend all together celebrating my Dad’s 75th and my Brother’s 45th birthdays and honoring my Mom’s 20th anniversary.

Well, technically an alarm clock woke me up at 6:30 a.m., followed by a perky “Good Morning!” hug when I picked up one of my climbing partners and her pup. We made my standard coffee shop stop for tea and croissant before hitting the road to my favorite hike in the Columbia River Gorge. Our nonstop conversation on the road carried over to the trail and we arrived at the Angel’s Rest summit earlier than anticipated. We spontaneously pressed on to check off the Devil’s Rest summit from my bucket list and still returned to town around lunchtime. I took a shower, rotated laundry, and cooked the Run Fast. Eat Slow. curry lentil soup from scratch. Then watched a movie about artists before writing this post and then reading a novel before bed.

Unplanned, simply intuited it was actually exactly the kind of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day I could imagine spending with my Mom, if she were still around.

Who knows, maybe she is?

Perhaps her spirit was there today at Angel’s Rest.

And a thousand other places with all of her loved ones.

May you love quietly-softly-gently this week.

Love,

Jules

P.S. Photo Credit: Laura Guderyahn (your fellow reader and Founding Member subscriber)