Ten Years

Ten years. It's a long time. It's a short time. It's long enough to make a newborn turn into a lightning fast soccer player. It's long enough for two married people to figure out if those vows are going to stick. And it's long enough for a person to forget what life was like with two flesh and bone feet.

I had my amputation surgery ten years ago. On January 12, 2004 I limped into a hospital in Bountiful, Utah, and climbed up onto a gurney. As I looked down I could see two bumps sticking up from the light sheet that covered my body. Two feet that were attached to my legs. The two feet I was born with. And I knew that within hours the left side of that sheet would lay flat.

But somehow I wasn't scared. It might be hard to believe, but I was actually excited.

I had lived with a foot I hated for most of my life. Too many times in my childhood I'd look down at that twisted foot that wouldn't let me do what my friends and siblings were doing, and I'd curse it. Stupid foot. Why can't you just be straight?

As the mother of young children I'd find myself sending hateful thoughts to my left foot. Was it too much to ask that I could go shopping for groceries, haul them home, put them in the cabinets, and not be so worn out that I'd have to sink into the couch for the rest of the day? Dragging that foot, eventually strapped to a brace, took all my energy. There was limited time to be the mommy I wanted to be.

Another day, another disappointment. Jeff is packing up the van for a fun hike through the local park. It's common knowledge that I won't go. I'll buy a Sunday paper, or find a good library book, and I'll wait in the van for them to emerge from the forest. With pink cheeks and excited stories to tell, I soak in their joy. I'll be the audience, allowed only to watch, not to join in on the stage. The only hiking pictures I have to sift through in the future are those of them putting on their tiny backpacks and then the occasional shots of them climbing back in the van.

By the time I found myself on that hospital gurney, wrapped in a breezy gown, I was ready. Ready to get rid of that foot that was nothing but trouble and sadness to me.

Now it's ten years later. A decade has passed since I woke up from that surgery and instantly lifted the sheet to make sure Dr. Hess had taken enough. I wanted more than just my withered foot cut off. I needed some of my leg taken too, so I could have clearance for the exciting prosthetic feet I'd been eyeing.

He'd done a great job. I healed quickly and moved on with my life. By Easter I was walking on my own, fairly well. No cane or crutches. I was wearing a dress with sandals. The first time I'd worn sandals in two decades, now that I had a regular foot. I posed for a picture at church with a friend who had just finished her chemo treatments. It was a milestone day for both of us.

That summer we toured the Red Rocks of southern Utah and I was part of the fun. I hiked up the trails to stand under the large arches. I'm in the pictures. No longer held back.

I've tried a lot of fun things in the past ten years. I was learning to ski on the first anniversary of my surgery. For the next two years I skied almost every Friday afternoon, with Jeff by my side, encouraging me with every turn.

I've done a variety of hikes. No Kilimanjaros. Just the kind of hikes that matter to me. Down an easy trail, with the people I love ahead of me and behind me. Ending up at a waterfall in Vermont or a bluff in New York. There are many pictures now, of me on hiking trails. 

Something I'd never dreamed of while I sat back in that van, reading my Sunday paper.

I've written a book and had it published. It was started just weeks after my surgery, when Jeff set me up at the computer, and found a nice resting place for my bandaged up stump. I had been frustrated during my pre-surgery research, that there were no books out there about regular amputees. In fact, there were only about four amputee books on the market back in 2004. They were all about super athletes. I was impressed, but not really encouraged that I'd find what I imagined on the other side of this surgery. I wanted to hear from an everyday amputee. Maybe even a mom, or a dad, who just wanted more mobility and found it.

Since I have some history with writing, I dived in. Chapter by chapter I wrote, edited, re-wrote, had friends read and make suggestions, wrote some more. For the next eight years I chipped away at that manuscript. As my new amputee life was unfolding, I'd go to my computer and get down what it was like in the earlier days, before my new leg snapped onto my body, so I could share with other amputees what my journey looked like. For a few months it would be filed away, as life got crazy. My kids were turning into teens and I didn't have as much time to write.

Then it would call to me, as yet another stranger would approach me in public and ask, "How did you lose your leg?" and "My son/daughter/mother/father just lost his leg. What advice can you give me?"  

I would be reminded how important it was to get an amputee book out there.

Finally, one year and three months ago, it was done and published. Now when I get the questions I can hand them a card. It will take them to my website, that has many helpful links and several essays. It can say so much more than I can, when I only have a handful of minutes with a stranger in public.

I've sledded on icy hills in New Hampshire and Utah with my kids. I've gone along with the gang, on almost every adventure. There are still days I stay back, when Jeff and the boys want to do serious hiking in the mountains around us. But when they come home I'm ready to tackle the challenges that are more my speed. Walking a trail at the dog park, talking about our day.

And, to be honest, just as important to me, is the simple things I can do. Now that I have energy return on my left side, I walk more evenly. Both sides are participating. That means I can do an overflowing cart trip to the grocery store, haul it to the car, unload it at home and still have plenty of energy left to do what the rest of the day calls for. Making dinner. Throwing in laundry. Keeping up with the tall teenagers who live in my house. My leg does it's part and gets me through my  day. I'm never whole body exhausted when it's time for bed, like I used to be every night before I got this metal foot.

It is truly hard to remember what it was like to stumble along on that deformed foot. The only real reminder I have is the phantom pain ache I sometimes feel, coming from that foot that is no longer there. I can curl the toes on that foot, in my brain. And sometimes it aches like it used to when I was so hard on it. But it's not really there. So I rub my stump or shake it out, and the ache is gone. The foot is gone and the agony is gone. Missing out on my kids' lives is gone.

I've been the lady with the prosthetic leg for a decade now. Most of my kids only know me as an amputee mom. And to them it's perfectly normal for a mom to have to take off her leg in the middle of a hot day, and wipe out the sweat, before continuing the hike. For my now 13 year old, he literally has no memory of me as a two legged mom. I've always been there for him, with my metal foot to keep up with what he dished out. My older three have faint memories. They remember the surgery more than anything. The feeling that this was a big deal and not knowing what to expect on the other side. Moms are solid and constant. Moms don't lie on hospital beds and get their limbs cut off.

But it didn't take long for them to see that I was still their mom. Still the same person. There were long afternoons of card games while I sat on my bed, waiting for the incision to heal. We snuggled and watched movies. Curled up together and read books. There wasn't anything scary about a cast and a mom with a shorter leg.

Then I was up and around. They thought the leg was actually pretty cool. Robots and Super Heros had this kind of stuff. My youngest spent the greater part of his three year old year hanging out in an office filled with fake hands and feet, as my prosthetist made adjustments to my leg.

Life happened. Day after day. We moved from Utah to New York, then New York to Colorado. And I was 'just the mom'. I continued to buy groceries, mix them up for dinners, change loads of laundry, and sign school papers. I was not defined by my artificial limb.

I quickly acclimated to the title of amputee. For so many years I'd tried to hide my disability and once I had my new leg I found I was proud to identify with the amputee community. Finally I had a title I could hang on to, a title people understood. And, lucky for me, by the time I had my surgery, amputees were no longer scary and weird. We were intriguing, wearing interesting hardware.

I've had a pretty good ten years. I've grown into my title and tried to represent it well. I know I'll never walk perfectly but I love working on my gait in public, showing the world how normal it can be to have a prosthetic leg. I love working out at the gym, showing others how wonderful my leg is and what it allows me to do.

I look forward to the next ten years. I have some personal goals, but what I've learned along the way is that life can surprise you. I can't wait to see what I'll write about ten years from now, when I've held this title of amputee for 20 years. 

It's going to be amazing. I just know it. 

This Time Next Year

It's that time of year. The calendar rolls over to January and suddenly it's time to start thinking about life changes. Even if you're not into official New Years resolutions, there's something about a fresh new year, that brand new calendar page, that inspires change.

Maybe this year I can do it, you think. Maybe this is the year you will find the courage to do what needs to be done, to get the life you've dreamed of. I'm not talking about moving to the Caribbean and living on the beach. I'm talking about the more personal things. The things that have the potential to change your life in big ways, if you'll only commit, truly commit to doing them.

Maybe it's getting the courage to start working on a marriage that has changed a bit too much since the vows were whispered in a big beautiful church.  Maybe it's getting serious about all of those promises you make to your doctor, about how you'll eat better, and get your wimpy heart some exercise on a regular basis. Or maybe it's getting your messy finances in order and not having to cringe every time you open the mailbox, because you fear the stack of bills that hangs out in it's dark interior.

Because I feel your pain, I am going to help you out. I'm going to let you borrow a phrase that has helped me face some pretty big life moments. I've never run a marathon or lost a hundred pounds. But I did have my left foot cut off. There's that.

After living with a deformed foot for most of my life, and never being able to run or jump, I got rid of my left foot just about ten years ago.  

On January 12, 2014 my family will celebrate the ten year anniversary of the day mom got rid of her old foot and started over in life with one that works. It happens to be metal, but it works so much better than the one I got rid of.

And it wasn't easy. It was as scary as you'd imagine. There were months in bed, waiting for stitches to heal. At the time my kids were ages 3, 7, 11 and 12. I had to find a way to be their mom on one leg, until my limb was ready to accept the prosthetic leg. That's when I pulled out my handy life mantra. Are you ready to hear it?

This time next year.

It's as simple as that. I concentrated on this time next year. If I was patient, and did what I had to do to move forward in my recovery, my life would be very different this time next year.

This time next week, and even this time next month, not much would be different. I'd still be in the trenches, working hard to reach my goals. But this time next year? A lot would be different

.

And sure enough, a year after my amputation surgery, I was on a mountain in Park City, getting my first ski lesson. I never imagined I'd be able to share the slopes with my ski loving children and my black slope loving husband. That deformed foot just wouldn't work right in a ski boot.

But in January of 2005, I was on those slopes, making my way down the hill.

This time next year.

That wasn't the first major life event I used my handy phrase. Back in the summer of 1996 we had a baby boy join our family who was not well. The doctors were baffled by his symptoms and every day our newborn grew weaker and more dehydrated. As I rocked away our days in that small, dark hospital room, waiting for our magic answer, I repeated that phrase to myself.

This time next year.

This time next year I would either be chasing around a healthy little boy who had just learned to walk and was trying his best to keep up with his big brother and sister. Or this time next year we'd talk about the baby we buried and honor the date we lost him by visiting a tiny gravestone. I had no idea which scenario I would be living out, but I knew that by this time next year it would all be resolved.

The pain I was feeling, as I cradled my delicate newborn, would eventually have an end, and life would go on.

Fortunately our family was one of the lucky ones. By the summer of 1997 we celebrated Isaac's first birthday and gave some extra thank you prayers to God, feeling so lucky that we got to keep him. Today he towers over all of us, at six feet five inches tall. 

My this time next year boy.

So this year decide what you need to change. Really think about what needs to be different, so that you can live a better life. And then dive in. Jump in with both feet and don't expect changes to come instantly. Plug away and do what has to be done. In the back of your mind you can chant my mantra. This time next year.

Actively think about what your life could look like if you really stuck to your promise. How much richer, less stressed, healthier, more peaceful could your life be, if you just hung on until this time next year?

Make this the year you do it. And don't stop imagining what your world could look like.

This time next year.

Colorful October

This is my kitchen window today. The candle burns as a kind of remembrance. I pulled it out from under the cabinet and lit its wick this morning because I can't make the phone call I want to make.

I can't call my mom and wish her a happy birthday. It's been almost two decades since I've been able to hear her voice squeal out my name in that way only she could say it, as she picked up the phone and realized it was her youngest daughter on the other end of the line. A call to fuss over her, on her important day, that would so quickly turn into a phone call about me. Almost immediately she'd be asking about my welfare, how my hubby was doing, and of course those two grand-babies she loved to spoil.

We lost her in 1994, and with her passing, I lost my time with her. Instead of making plans to go antique shopping with her, or check out the latest country music band at the county fair, my interactions with her came down to a candle. A candle on my kitchen window sill to remind me, and remind her in some remote way, that she is not forgotten.

Today or any day.

There are two days a year that inspire me to pull out the candle under the sink. The first one, August 30, is the day we said our last goodbyes, when it became clear that her traumatized body would not recover from the massive stroke she'd suffered while country dancing three nights before. And the second one falls on October 11th, the day she joined the human race, way back in 1945, in a small hospital in Waco, Texas.

It's sad and ironic to me that I was never fully aware of her birthday until she was gone. My mom was the kind who was skilled at diverting attention away from herself. Her days were spent doing all the mundane chores required to keep a household full of natural children, and foster children, alive and healthy. She made a point to wave off our attempts to pat her on the back or celebrate her in any way. 

I remember being specifically told not to worry about commemorating my mom and dad's anniversary. "It's a day for the two of us to celebrate, you kids shouldn't worry about it", she'd tell me.

Now that I'm coming close to a 25th wedding anniversary myself I have to wonder if she did her best to draw attention away from her own anniversary for the reasons she quoted, or if it was just too painful to concentrate on a marriage that suffered in the years of raising so many children. I couldn't see her sadness and loneliness until I was a grown up myself, navigating the bumpy waters that come with keeping a marriage alive.

In my high school and college years I knew that my mom's birthday was in October, but if pressed for the exact date, I'm afraid I might not have hit the mark very accurately. Birthday parties were not a big deal in our house. With so many faces around the table, and so little money in the bank account, birthdays generally meant a cake with your name on it and a smattering of candles to extinguish. And that was for the kids, the household demographic who actually cared about a celebration. For the adults, a lack of fuss didn't seem to be a big deal.

The college years ended right as the married ones began for me. One baby came along, then another followed quickly after. We were just figuring out how to relate to each other, my parents and me, in this brave new world of being grownups at the same time, when she was swiftly gone.

And her birth date was forever engraved into a headstone.

A headstone I picked out and ordered, with babies balanced on my hip,  to save my father the added grief of a task that ushered him into an unexpected world of being a young widower.  Standing in that small office, surrounded by polished granite samples, and writing out the dates we wanted added to a stone, seared them into my brain.

So now that date in August is a sad day for me. The second of a pair of dates etched on a headstone. At the end of summer every year I think of her a bit more. I get reflective, especially if I find myself alone in the car for any extended amount of time. The memories re-surface, of all night hospital vigils, and hugs from friends around a fresh mound of dirt.

Then, two months later, this other date rolls around. The opposite of her death date. Her birth date has become something different with the passing years. As much as I get reflective and sad on the date in August, I have begun to think about the positive parts of her when the date in October shows up.

She always loved autumn. The leaves turning bright colors, the air temperature finally easing some as the hot humid summers in Missouri ended. Time to start cooking warm comforting dishes like her delicious homemade noodles.  It was the simple things in life that made her happy and Fall is full of simple pleasures.

When I see the signs of a season she loved so much, my thoughts circle around to my mom. Now that I live in Colorado, where we see fairly drastic season changes, having our first snowfall just a few weeks ago when September was still in full swing, the happy memories of her start sneaking into my thoughts not long after that mournful date in August.

On a drive home from Denver the other day the highway was hemmed in by bright yellow leaves. As I wound my way towards home the air temperature dropped and I could feel the Autumn season almost as distinctly as the jacket I'd thrown on that chilly morning. And I felt my mom.

Not as a heaviness I've fought in years past. But in a presence. I took the time to let the busyness of my day fall away and I let down my car window. I ceased the rushing back toward home, only to jump into the next item on the list so I could possibly be 'caught up' before I then headed off to work in the early afternoon. I let myself relax and think of my mom, and the millions of ways she helped me navigate my life for my first quarter of a century.

Today is her birthday. Even if she's not here to fight me as I try to celebrate it for her. She is on my mind and in my heart. Her spirit was as bright as that little candle that burns in my kitchen window.

Side note: This year there is a bright yellow flower next to the candle. It's the flower I was given at a heart breaking memorial service several weeks ago. As we gathered to say our goodbyes to a baby named Alice, who only got six days on the planet and will be remembered and loved by her parents for the rest of their lives, we were all given a bright colored flower to take home. And Alice's flower continues to stand tall and gorgeous in my kitchen window. 

Days keep passing and it refuses to wilt. Every day reminding me of how fragile life is, and how lucky we are to be given even one day surrounded by the people we love.

I like to think that my mom's had her turn cradling that innocent baby named Alice. After her own relatives welcomed Alice into their fold, I like to think my mom did her magic with one more baby - partially because it's a baby who belongs to a couple I care deeply about and partially because my mom was just great with babies.

Maybe, just maybe, as my mom's candle burns in my window sill today, Alice's flower is there to make sure I don't forget how precious life is, every single life. Whether we get 6 days or 50 years, life is a gift.

Baby Alice

We all gathered under a beautiful tree, its branches reaching over the large deck that encircled it. White chairs sat in neat rows, filled with people who loved her and loved her parents. A set of tables lined one side of the deck, covered with bulletin boards, handmade quilts and a baptism certificate. The pictures that were pasted to the bulletin boards were gorgeous.  They spelled out the six days that Alice was on the planet. The six days that her parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles got to love her, and kiss her, and tell her how much she was loved.

And then she was gone.

Her grandpa said it best, as he spoke his truth at her memorial service. He started his speech with "It's not fair". How right he was. He was so right, and so in tune with what every person sitting under that tree was feeling that his three words made new tears stream down my face.

How can it ever be fair that a little person as perfect as Alice not get to live a full, long life? How is it fair that she was born into a large, loving family who would have spoiled her rotten?

Her daddy is a co-worker of mine. I'd never met her mama until that day, under the tree. But what I know about them is enough to make me want to scream "IT'S NOT FAIR" into the wind.

He's the director of children's programming at the large rec center where I work. He's the perfect person for the job. He's retained just enough of his kid side to fit in well with the little people who stream through our doors, but he's grown up enough to do the boring stuff like schedule programs, create camps and juggle a million activities at once. He's a shining light in our building, always willing to drop what he's doing to help anyone who needs it. More than once he's gotten me out of a computer jam, when I'm sure he had better things to do. He is the king of safety and co-teaches our CPR classes every six months.

He would be a perfect dad. He was ready to be a perfect dad. He'd planned to take off the whole month of December so he could stay home and throw himself into raising his little girl. He painted her nursery the exact color her mama wanted and in his free time dreamed about which Indie band she'd play in.

From what I hear about her mama, there is no doubt baby Alice picked perfect parents. Her mama works in the social services, helping troubled teens find their way. Nothing Alice would have done in her teen years would have rattled her mama. No matter which Indie band she joined.

But Alice didn't stay long. Her little light joined the world on September 20th. She spent several days hooked up to machines while the people who loved her gathered around her incubator and prayed desperate prayers.

And then the tubes were removed and the incubator opened. Her mama and daddy got to lift her out of the warm box and hold her in their arms. They got to dress her up the tiny clothes they'd received from many baby showers. They got to whisper their love for her into her tiny ears. She was passed from grandparent to grandparent, so everyone could have a chance to feel her light before she left.

And the pictures were taken. Pictures that lined one side of the deck that surrounded the tree. The tree of life sheltered those of us who were remembering a special little life. A life that enriched her parents hearts more than they could have ever imagined, and then broke their hearts deeper than they knew was possible.

She was surrounded by love, but she didn't get to stay long. Just long enough to say hello and goodbye to the amazing parents she picked to bring her into the world.

I know there is a reason for every life and every death. But after walking away from that service to celebrate her tiny life, I couldn't stop crying. No matter how much you try to reason away why she left so young, it never adds up. I always come back to

It isn't fair.

Letters From a Daughter

The anniversary of my mom's death passed just a few weeks ago. It's been so long now, that I've lived without her. Something deep in my soul carries around an ache for her, but the chaos of life does a good job of keeping those feelings off my daily radar.

This year, about the same time I was making myself stop long enough to remember that day, almost two decades ago, that we buried her, I saw an interesting invitation online. Hope Edelman mentioned on her facebook page that she was issuing a new edition of her book on mother loss and was taking submissions of letters from motherless daughters.

This is the same Hope Edelman who lost her own mother before she turned 20, and went on to write what I consider the bible of mother loss, called "Motherless Daughters". She was doing the book tour when my mom died and my sister bought three copies, one for each of our mom's suddenly motherless daughters. Hope's book made me weep, every time I read it, then re-read it through the years, but it also brought me comfort, that I was not alone in the unique lonesomeness I felt. Her follow up books about mother loss also deeply impacted my life and hold treasured spots on my personal book case.

As soon as I saw Hope's call for submissions I knew I had to send her something. I have so many thoughts and feelings about losing my mother, and how it changed who I am and how I mother my own children, that I felt a deep urge to get something written for Hope, as soon as possible.

My list for the afternoon went away. I immediately opened up a new Word document and started writing. An hour later, as I took a break from the office chair, I sat outside with my husband. Breathing fresh air helped clear my head and hearing just a bit of my husband's perspective on the subject helped me focus as I headed back to the computer desk.

In the end I came up with two letters. Two very different letters, on different aspects of losing my mom. I sent them off to Hope and got back to my daily list.

This morning she sent copies back to me with an email saying that parts of them may be printed in the new edition of her book called "Letters from Motherless Daughters". I could not have been more thrilled. I opened up the letters, to do a final edit on them before I officially submitted them, and was surprised by the tears that flowed once again.

Weeks after writing these letters, they still make me cry. Weeks after that date on the calendar that makes me think of the day I said goodbye to her forever, these words about losing her, and missing her, still stir something very deep.

In the years that have passed I have seen that many women walk among us who understand this loss, this pain of living without a mother. You might never know it until you mention your own mother loss. Then suddenly their story emerges, and that familiar pain flashes from their eyes.

I decided to post the two letters I wrote to Hope, thinking maybe there might be some other woman out there who needed to know she was not alone. It's a unique loss, and a unique pain. Since I believe 'we are all just here to help each other', I am posting these letters today. Just in case they can help someone else.

Dear Hope,                                                       August 31, 2013

Yesterday was the 19th anniversary of my mom's death. My niece, who was growing in my sister's belly when we buried my mom, will turn 19 soon. It's sad to me, that I can always know how old Rachel is, because it's the same number of years that I've missed my mom. But it's a reality in my family. We had one life, then came a funeral, and we were launched into another life.

My mom died of a stroke. She had just turned 50. She had just lost a lot of weight and was starting to really enjoy her life. After years of taking care of everyone else, she was finally having some fun. And then she was gone.

I'd learned about the 'stages of grief' in college and they made me very angry. I knew I'd go through most of the stages but the acceptance part made me furious. It would never be okay that she died. I'd never be able to accept it.

After 19 years though, I kind of have a new view on the situation. She's still gone. As much as I yearn for her, she'll never be back. And sometimes it feels like it would be weird if she were back now. So much has changed.

The lives of my family - my siblings, my dad, my own little family - have moved on. The lives that have been built in the past 19 years are probably different from what might have happened if she'd been here. It's like a different matrix.

After she died the hub of our family was gone. We gathered that Thanksgiving and ate the first turkey my dad had ever cooked, and talked about how much we all missed her. But soon we stopped gathering. There was no hub keeping us together. My dad was moving on, setting up his new life, and my siblings and I kept in touch individually.  We no longer felt like a team.

If it weren't for that fact, I don't know if my husband would have taken the job that required a move to Washington D.C. Since we didn't feel like the clan was a unit anymore, he took the job. We've lived in five amazing states since then and it helped his career immensely.

Nine years ago I made a huge decision, to have my foot cut off. It was a foot that was deformed most of my life and I finally decided that I wanted to cut it off and start over. I'm not sure I could have made that decision if my mom were still alive. She was so deeply entwined in the surgeries I had as a child, to correct that foot, and always felt like it was her fault I'd been born with it at all. It would have bothered her deeply to know I wanted to cut it off. I'm not sure I could have moved past her feelings and had it done.

Because I had the surgery, I live a pretty active life with my new bionic foot. I know she'd be happy to see that, but the irony is, I don't know if I could have had it done if she'd been here. My life matrix would have looked very different.

There are still times that I miss her deeply, but they come more in moments than full days.  When my tall 17 year old son walks in the kitchen, a child born on my brother's birthday and has turned into his Uncle's twin, I get a twinge in my heart, knowing she'll never know him. We'll never sit on my back porch and marvel at how much Isaac has grown, and how much he looks like his Uncle Dale did at that age. That hurts my heart.

When I'm walking a beautiful trail, surrounded by autumn leaves, feeling the cool autumn breeze on my face, I miss her. Her birthday was in October and she loved the fall season. Oranges and yellows make me think of her and most years I feel like I'm enjoying her season for her, as I take time to recognize the beauty around me.

And in a way I feel like she's still here sometimes. There's a song  that came out around the time of her death, that has lyrics close to what I'd imagine she would have said to us if she'd had a chance to say good-bye.

I hope life treats you kind, and I hope you have all you've dreamed of. And I wish you joy and happiness. But above all this I wish you love. I will always love you.

That song has come on the radio at too many perfect times for it to be a coincidence. I strongly feel it's her way of telling me she's still here, watching over me.

On my daughter's thirteenth birthday, the child who is named after my mom, I was driving home from a mother/daughter night out with her, looking over at her as she told me what she liked about the movie we'd seen, and a sadness fell over me. I was sad that my mom couldn't see what an amazing young woman her namesake had turned out to be. Then that song came on the radio. Tears flowed down my face.

Once I was leaned over my mother-in-law's shoulder as she flipped through pictures of the latest adventures our family had been on, and suddenly I had a twinge of sorrow. I felt a physical ache, that I'd never show this set of pictures to my own mom. And at that moment, that song came on the radio behind me. I knew she was there.

Would I rather have her here, physically? Yes. But time moved on and life unfolded without her here, and this is the reality I live with. I continue to raise my kids and count my blessings that my dad found a wonderful woman to be their step-grandmother. I have visions in my head, about what my mom would have been like now, with these teen age grandchildren. But I can't let myself dwell on them, or I get sad and forfeit the good life that has grown up around me. 

Every once in a while I hear that song. The tears flow, as they probably will until the day I meet her again on the other side. But I find comfort in the fact she's still watching over me.

Thank you for your amazing  books. They have carried me (and my two sisters) through the past 19 years. I know it must sometimes feel like a burden, that you are the token expert on mother loss, and you can never 'get away from it', but you've done such an amazing thing for so many women. You've given us a community of other women who understand. Take a break from it when you need to, but know that every effort you make is like a pond ripple moving across the water. Your influence continues on and on and on. And those of us who are touched by it are very grateful.

Very Sincerely,

Judy Berna

And the second letter: 

  

Dear Hope,                                                       August 31, 2013

The day after my mother died my four siblings and I were standing in circle in her kitchen. My older sister had two books in her hand. One she handed to me, and one she handed to our other sister. I read the title - "Motherless Daughters" - as my fingers began to hold it, and I nearly dropped it on the floor. At a gut level my body rejected the idea of ever relating to that title.

I had a mother. I had a great mother. I had that mom who was everybody's mom. She raised five of her own and many foster children too. She took in neighborhood kids with special needs as their moms had trouble finding day cares that would take them. I had that mom who was constantly giving to everyone  else. She sensed the needs in hurting people and instinctively knew how to meet them. 

There was no way I'd ever need a book about motherless daughters.

But then I did. 

The phone call came. We huddled in hospital waiting rooms all weekend as she fought to come back from a vicious stroke. And then we had to let her go. Release forms were signed, and we huddled around her hospital bed, hoping she could hear us tell her how much she'd be missed. 

Then she was gone.

And I was a motherless daughter.

A week after we buried her my elderly neighbor caught me as I was walking out to get the mail. "I heard about your loss. I'm so sorry. I lost my mom 42 years ago and I still miss her every day." I appreciated her condolences but the thought of living with that suffocating grief for the rest of my life honestly scared me.

At that point I was holding back tears during the day, as I mothered our two toddlers, waiting until they were asleep in bed before I allowed myself to hover in the shower, weeping into my hands, for as long as the hot water would last. I craved a place where I could go scream at the top of my lungs, "AHHHHHHH! IT'S NOT FAIR!"

As much as he wanted to help, my husband felt lost too, not knowing what to say as I cried myself to sleep every night, telling him I felt like I'd been pushed off a huge cliff, into an adulthood with no back up. The thought of my mother not being there as I navigated through the rest of my life was just hard to even comprehend.

Weeks passed. Then months. Soon it was the first anniversary of my mom's death and I couldn't believe I'd lived a whole year without talking to her, or hugging her. My babies had a whole year of developmental changes she would never know about. Most of the time I still couldn't believe she wasn't just 'out there', somewhere. I still had dreams where we'd dig up her grave and it turned out she was still alive, and so thankful we'd come to save her. It still wasn't real that she was gone. Forever gone.

That was 19 years ago. I recall it like it was yesterday because it was a huge turning point in my life. I dog paddled through the grief long enough that I finally wore myself out. Slowly I started to build the life that didn't include her.

Now I live in a house with four old 'children'. Two of them she never knew. The two she did know look very different at 20 and 21 than they did as the 1 and 2 year old toddlers she tickled and hugged. It's a surreal thought, that she doesn't know these kids who are so close to my heart.

She loved kids and she would have loved these kids. But that's not the way life turned out. My husband tells me I grieved for the idea of what life should have been like and I think he's right. I was mad that she was gone, but I was also so very sad that the life I'd imagined was not going to happen. The years of her spoiling them, encouraging them, telling them how much they reminded her of their aunts and uncles at that age - gone.

Because life doesn't stop just because your grieving heart feels like it has, years passed by. 

Those kids grew up. We moved to other states and made zillions of memories. None of them including her. I missed her, but she was not a part of my life for so long that she became a spirit that was with me, more than a mom who was there to have my back.

I try to tell my kids stories about her, and remind them that she would have loved them to their cores, but it's just words to them. She'll only be a real person to me and my husband.

Now I feel like I'm waiting for the day that I hear about a young neighbor losing her mother and I will become the elderly woman, there to tell her that I lost my own mom 42 years ago. And I still miss her. Every single day.

Thank you for your books, Hope. They have been like life rafts as I've navigated the past 19 years. Through your own grief you accidentally ended up making several million other motherless daughters feel not quite so alone. As I've told you many times before, you are a gem.

Very Sincerely,

Judy Berna

Heirloom Table

My kitchen table is full of scratches. I'm not talking accidental fork holes or occasional errant knife marks. I mean like the previous owner used this table for crafting, and didn't bother using a cutting mat when using her Exacto knife.

Most of the time it doesn't bother me. In fact, with a house full of teen agers, it helps me relax, that they can't really damage it more than it already is. On special occasions I can throw a table cloth over it. But most days it sits bare, its deep flaws exposed for the world to see.

For most of our 23 years of marriage we've had second hand tables. Except for a very special seven year period, when I had a magnificent table.

Back in 2003 we had just moved from Washington D.C. to Utah when I got the call that my grandmother had died. She and I had been close, until age and a hard life had left her to ride out her later years in a nursing home, unaware of those around her for the most part. We packed up our van full of little ones and drove down to Texas for the funeral.

Unexpectedly we discovered we had received an inheritance. A nice little chunk of change that was significant to our bare bones budget. We thought long and hard about what my grandmother would want us to do with the money she left us. And a kitchen table made the list. My grandmother loved good furniture, and she adored my children. Knowing they'd sit around a beautiful table for each meal would have definitely pleased her.

I'd always dreamed of having a big wooden table that was surrounded by sturdy chairs. I loved the idea of feeding my children around it every day, then some day sitting across from their boyfriends and girlfriends...then their fiancés...then their new spouses...then someday, in the very distant future, pulling a high chair up to that same table to feed the grandbabies they'd bring home to me. I dreamed of a heritage table.

No other piece of furniture in the house spoke to me like a good, solid kitchen table. The place where every day meals were consumed. The place where homework was spread out, and board games were won and lost. Dressed up with candles and tablecloths for holidays, and filled with pumpkin scraps, birthday cake sprinkles, and gingerbread house crumbs as the seasons changed.

When we realized that our house full of hand me down and thrift store furniture would be blessed with a new (real!) kitchen table we spent months hunting down just the right set. We shopped at just about every furniture store in the Salt Lake City valley, and even considered making our own if we could find a big old barn door that we could cut down. But finally we found what we were looking for.  It was big and sturdy... fancy yet hardy. Ironically it appeared to us on the showroom floor of the furniture store owned by the family we'd bought our Utah house from. That meant we got a pretty great deal on it too, and decided to buy the eight chairs, instead of six, so there would be extra seating for those future honored guests.

The Utah house had the perfect spot for our new table. The large room attached to the open kitchen was just screaming for a big family table. It arrived just in time for my sister's visit from Texas that December, and we gathered around it with her husband and three girls, to greet the new year together, building gingerbread houses and playing board games.

Just as I'd planned and dreamed about.

We used that table every single day of our three years in Utah. Many more holidays were celebrated there, many hundreds of homework assignments were completed there. Science fair projects were constructed and Monopoly tournaments were battled out into the wee hours of the morning. A good chunk of our memories in Utah, the ones created inside the house, happened around that table.

And the scenes were repeated when we packed it up and moved to New York. After intense renovations of the old farm house we purchased, we created another big dining room, just off the kitchen, where our big wooden table fit perfectly. More holidays rolled by, more family memories were made. Every once in a while it would get a small ding or an errant stray mark by a permanent marker, and instead of being upset, I'd smile. Because I knew that in the years to come we'd see those marks and tell the stories about how they got there. It was all part of the family history making that first put a yearning in my heart for a good, hearty family table.

After five wonderful years in New York, we found out our next move was taking us to Colorado. There was no doubt that table would come with us. It was practically a part of our family.

But this move didn't go as smoothly as the ones in years past. We did everything right - fixed up the house perfectly,  put half our belongings into storage to make the house look bigger and cleaner, got a good appraisal before putting it on the market - but the market seemed to tank the exact day the For Sale sign was pushed into the front yard.

Month after month we dropped the price, seeing all of our tens of thousands of dollars of equity dropping away with it. We went past our 'give away' price after four months. 

Four months after that we were starting to get desperate. 

All the money we'd accumulated for decades, in every move, that was rolled over to the next house, was slowly disappearing. In the end it got ugly. 

We were weeks away from having to just walk away from it and let it go to foreclosure. A heart breaking decision, as we'd spent five years fixing just about everything in that house, down to replacing every single appliance. It was in pristine condition. It just didn't have any buyers.

Then we got one offer. Even though the price they offered was twenty thousand below what we'd paid for it, before we put tens of thousands into it, and spent all of our free time providing sweat equity to fix it up, we had to consider their offer. It would mean someone would move in and enjoy our house. It meant it would not sit vacant and deteriorate as it went through the foreclosure procedures. It meant we could live with the fact we hadn't just walked away from this house we created and loved. We could know it was being loved again.

Then, as if it couldn't hurt any more, the day the moving guys were putting our belongings into the moving truck, the call came. The new buyers were considering dropping their offer. One of the conditions to following through with their offer was that they wanted a few pieces of our furniture. And since most of our furniture was old  and worn out, of course the piece they were talking about was my kitchen table. My heirloom table.

I stood in that long driveway, watching work men haul boxes into the moving truck, and willed myself not to cry. With the realtor in my ear, asking if we were willing to honor the buyer's request, I took a deep breath.

It was truly down to deciding whether I got to keep the table that was near and dear to my heart, and let our house go to foreclosure, or let it all go to the new buyers and walk away.  There was really only one choice to make.

The moving men dug out the three dining chairs that they'd already packed deep in the bowels of the moving truck and placed them back in our old dining room, right next to my beautiful wood table. And they all stayed behind when that truck drove away.

Once we found a rental house in Colorado (all the down payment money to buy a house was lost with that house sale) we hunted around in the thrift stores and got another kitchen table. It's sturdy and it came with six sturdy chairs. It's not my first pick, but the price was right and sometimes in life you just have to move on.

For a short time I let myself grieve for that table. I was fully aware that, with the huge financial hit we took on that New York house, the budget for a new heirloom table would be nonexistent for years to come. I was also very aware that, at this point, with two of our 'kids' now being young adults, the window of time for creating kid memories around that table had just about closed for half of my children. It was time to mentally move on.

My Colorado thrift store table works just fine. 

We've had some memorable meals around it already. We've hosted friends, old and new, around it. I fed my oldest son a few last meals before he headed off to his grown up life in the military, and I'll feed him around it once again, when he visits us during the holidays. The table itself, as scratched as it is, is not the reason I smile when I'm looking at his face while we share meals there. The meals don't necessarily taste better or worse because of the quality of table they are served off of. The people who surround the table are what matter to me.

It is probably a blessing that my chickens started their flights from my nest after I lost my precious table. It has helped me to realize what's important, truly important. A house full of beautiful things, leather couches and heirloom tables, is not what makes a home happy.

People I love walking through the door, and throwing their things across whatever table happens to sit in the dining room, is what makes me happy. 

Seeing those faces I love and miss so deeply, and watching those bodies sink into my sturdy thrift store chairs as they begin to open up to me about their latest adventures is what really matters.

There is a part of my heart that will always long for that table I left behind in New York. We had built, so steadily through the years, the memories that were leading us to my dream of an heirloom table. But life happens. And sometimes it's necessary to say goodbye to things you loved. It's all a part of the journey. 

And I'm pretty sure my grandmother would understand.