I lived in my sorority house sophomore year of college during the COVID-19 pandemic. It's tradition that every year we host a “mom’s weekend,” which was an event I had come to dread. Though, with the virus and lockdowns, it seemed relatively unlikely that we would organize one that year. Unfortunately, my friends had different plans: they wanted our own makeshift mom’s weekend.
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What was a nice weekend for them to get together and meet each other felt like another obligatory event I had to attend. I went, nonetheless. I engaged in small talk about where I was from and what I was studying– a conversation I repeatedly had with each mother– and all the while, I was praying that no one would ask me the one question I was trying so hard to avoid: “Where’s your mom?”
I’m not sure if it was the seventh or the eighth mother I talked to who finally asked and while I prepared to hear it, I still didn’t know how to respond. Strangely, the question didn’t make me sad or angry. It made me anxious and uncomfortable because I knew just by looking at my friend that her poor mother had no idea the weight behind what she had just asked.
What was a completely innocuous question wielded so much discomfort. How does one say that her mother isn’t there because she died? Is it even possible to avoid the awkwardness that will inevitably follow? And so, at very that moment, I didn’t feel bad for myself, I felt bad for my friend’s innocent and completely oblivious mother.
I guess I hoped that my friends had warned their mothers before coming and maybe they had. Even so, I couldn’t blame anyone. There's a "mom's weekend" for a reason: it's expected that a young woman like myself has a living mother. I, too, expected that over four years ago.
But I wish I didn’t have to give an explanation or dread being asked a seemingly harmless question. I wish I could spare others discomfort, sadness, and pity. Unfortunately, though, that was not the first time I’ve faced this question and it most definitely will not be the last.
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We found out my mother had brain cancer when I was 17 years old. She had been acting strange: she was distant, distracted, and uncharacteristically confused. I told my father what I had been noticing to which he replied, “She’s probably just in a funk.” She wasn’t, though, because I knew my mother and this wasn’t a “funk.”
Apparently my sister was picking up on her abnormal behavior, simply from talking to my mother on the phone and as the oldest, she insisted we go to the doctor. Unbeknownst to us, that trip to the doctor would not only confirm my suspicions– my mother was in no funk– but it would sweep the world right out from under our feet.
My mother underwent surgery to remove the tumor followed by rounds of chemotherapy and radiation. We thought the cancer was bad, but the treatment was worse. She lost her hair first, replacing it with a wig she absolutely detested. She then lost her appetite and a significant amount of weight along with it. And eventually, she lost her hope as she realized she was fighting an unbeatable battle.
It wasn’t until the cancer came back for a second time that the rest of us began to lose hope, too. I did, at least. After witnessing my mother seize uncontrollably on the kitchen floor of our home the morning of thanksgiving, I lost hope. It was silly of me to have had it in the first place: no one survives brain cancer, why would we be different?
Maybe that’s the day I began grieving or maybe it was a few months before when we were told about my mother’s condition the first time– I can’t be sure. All I know is that we put on a brave face, my mother included. Meanwhile, our sanity was dangling by a thread that only became thinner and thinner, threatening to break at any moment.
When my mother passed away, I was going into my senior year of high school. She had fought for a year but by the end, the cancer had won. It had taken her independence, her bodily control, and her ability to speak. I said goodbye to my mother without expecting any words in return, only eye contact and incoherent mumbling. I realized then that I had been grieving my mother’s loss for months.
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I love my father but sometimes, I strongly dislike him. While he is one of the most generous people I have ever known, he is also one of the most selfish. I often can’t wrap my head around how his traits contradict one another so perfectly that they cancel each other out. The appreciation I feel when he sends me a thoughtful package can be so easily replaced by anger when he fails to call and check in on me. He is my father and yet, he is more of a friend than a parent.
On Thanksgiving of 2017, when my mother had a seizure and we discovered the cancer had come back, my father was in a different hospital recovering from back surgery. While no one could’ve predicted the events that occurred on that day, we never imagined it would be spent with both parents confined to a hospital bed. But unlike my mother, my father’s stay was not only preventable, it was optional.
Until this day, I resent him for leaving my mother when she was battling issues much more difficult than his own. I am angry at him for leaving me alone to face the trauma that morning brought. I am sad that he put himself first. I’m not really surprised that he did.
I thought that losing my mother would make my father more aware of his faults and it did for a bit of time. He had lost his wife but more importantly, he lost the mother of his children. I think this realization was the hardest part because while he loved the woman he married, he loved the woman he made a mother more. I think that became clearer to me once she was gone just through the music he told me he would play late at night.
My father is an insomniac and while everyone else is asleep, he listens to songs. So when he turned to music after the passing of my mother, it didn’t come as a surprise. What I was apparently unaware of, though, was what he chose to listen to during his time of mourning.
He recently told me that the song he listened to the most was “Nothing Compares 2 U” by Chris Cornell, an artist who took his own life in 2017. While a concerning thing to discover, my father was never suicidal– at least not to my knowledge– but he resonated with the deceased singers lyrics nonetheless.
Upon hearing the lyrics, I understood why he felt attached to this song:
“It’s been so lonely without you here
Like a bird without a song
Nothing can stop these lonely tears from falling
Tell me, where did I go wrong?”
These words meant something entirely different to Chris Cornell than they did to my father because while the former suffered from a breakup, the latter mourned the death of his life partner. Nevertheless, both wondered if there was something they could’ve done differently– where they went wrong.
My father also mentioned “Woman,” a love song by Mumford & Sons that speaks to the mystifying elements of the female being that leave men awestruck:
“I can't read your mind though I'm trying all the time
There's something I don't know, I can see it in your eyes
As the night descends, it's always slow again
I am left in awe of the woman I adore”
After listening to these lyrics that my father nearly burned into his mind over four years ago, I feel a strange sense of relief knowing that he was in awe of my mother. That he really did love her. But I still couldn’t understand why he resorted back to his old and somewhat selfish ways so soon after her death. Maybe he knew he could never fill the void her passing would leave but sometimes, I’m not sure he really tried to.
I commonly joke that if I was failing out of college, my father would have no idea. Not because he’s neglectful, but because he never had those responsibilities. From the very start, he was a friend. It was my father who would involuntarily play “pretend” with me when I was young, which usually consisted of me pretending to be a professional soccer player and him my coach. The two of us would make trips to McDonalds and drive up to Massachusetts every weekend to go skiing. He worked long hours and sometimes got impatient with me but for the most part, he was the companion and my mother was the parent.
Luckily for him, when my mother passed away, he was left with fully grown children because not much has changed. My dad is still my friend– one that financially supports me, puts a roof over my head, and books my flights to come home.
I know he misses my mother. I know everyday he wishes there was more he could’ve done. I know he feels inadequate. He will never be able to give the same advice, hugs, support that my mother did. He will never be able to fill the crater of a hole she left but sometimes, I wish he tried harder to. Sometimes, I just need a parent.
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Imagine a world without music. A world where earphones and speakers only serve to transmit spoken words or random sounds. A world where every movie felt like a silent one and the only background noise at parties, bars, and clubs were the awkward conversations taking place between two strangers. Would it be a quiet world or just an extremely dull one?
I’ve always appreciated the act of listening to music. The act of putting on my favorite song or just the one that best fits my mood and allowing it to completely infiltrate my mind. It is simply listening to music in the car, on a walk, while in the shower, that can alter my mood quicker than a therapy session can. Yet, what I’ve come to learn and grown to appreciate is not just listening to music, but listening to music with other people.
As a young woman in college, I struggle to imagine the world I previously mentioned: one without music. When I walk to class, I listen to music. When I’m at the gym, I listen to music. When I’m doing work, I listen to music. It serves a purpose in all occasions whether it is to calm me down or wake me up. Though, what I truly can’t imagine is not being able to experience music with those around me.
It is easy to share this experience with other people. To all be together with music playing in the background. To listen to the new album Taylor Swift just released or sing along to classics like “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Sweet Caroline.” It’s so simple, the act of listening to music together, of being happy together, of being happy with others.
Yet, while there is a time for listening to music with others, there is also a time for listening alone. A time when the songs can only be heard by you, can only be felt by you. The same can be said of memories. We tend to share the happy ones with the people around us. We tell them the lighthearted stories of our childhood. Stories of our first kiss and trips to Disney World.
What we rarely share are the sad memories: the ones of pain, loss, and discomfort. Those memories we save for when we’re alone and only we can experience them. Unlike listening to happy music and sharing positive memories, sadness isn’t shared easily. In actuality, it’s often not shared at all– it’s putting in your earbuds and listening alone, not blasting the speaker for the whole room to hear.
In fact, you never fully understand the power music wields until you experience a loss: the loss of a relationship, the loss of innocence, the loss of a loved one. Before this, it’s easy to recognize the sorrow a song carries. It isn’t until the loss of someone or something that this same song begins to resonate with you. I learned this the hard way.
As I sat in my high school boyfriend’s room listening to music, the song “All I Want” by Kodaline came on. I had heard it before but this time was different: the lyrics were so much more relatable than I remembered them being. By the chorus, I was in tears.
I was surprised, not because the song was sad– that I knew– but because it had such an unusual impact on my emotions. Its lyrics had a new meaning to me now that I had lost my mother:
“ All I want is nothing more
To hear you knocking at my door
‘Cause if I could see your face once more
I could die a happy man I’m sure”
These words were a reflection of the way I felt. I, too, ached to have one more interaction with my mother– one last time seeing her face, hearing her voice, feeling her embrace. No longer were these just lyrics to a sad song, they were a reflection of the dialogue that constantly ran through my mind.
When my mother was diagnosed, I started to bottle up my emotions. I didn’t want to be another burden nor did I want to fall apart during what felt like the most important year of high school. So rather than giving into the sadness, I pushed through it. I kept busy by working hard, playing sports, and being with my friends. I had outlets, unlike others in my family, and while I felt guilty about this, I knew it was probably for the best.
So when “All I Want” left me in tears, I couldn’t fully understand what was happening in my body– one I tried to keep so guarded, so composed. Yet, the words and melody of the song infiltrated this guard, completely shattering the bottle that held all the emotions I tried so hard to conceal.
There’s a reason music is so powerful. It conveys so many emotions within its lyrics and its tune. I guess I started to fully understand this while sitting on my ex-boyfriend’s bed in tears. I also understood that this control music had over me was both amazing and dangerous at the same time. It was an outlet for emotional expression and emotional expression was something I often wanted to avoid, especially in the company of others. That’s the funny thing about music: it is experienced so privately and, yet, expressed so publicly.
I haven’t listened to “All I want” in full since that day in high school. That is, until now. So many years later and the song still elicits the same emotions I felt all those years ago. I think that’s why I’ve avoided clicking play: this fear of what might happen if I do.
Listening to this song doesn’t actually change anything– I experience grief no matter the circumstance. Maybe it isn’t really fear that has prevented me from clicking play but the need for control. Control over emotions that have always been there, ones that I continue to lock up because I don’t want to be a burden and I don’t want to fall apart.
To the ear, a song is simply words strung together as a melody plays in the background. However, to the mind, a song is so much more because by simply listening to its harmony and internalizing its lyrics, we are handing over all our self-control.
Music creates a vacuum, perfect for experiencing emotions to the fullest. While one song may elicit the strongest feeling of joy, another can unleash our greatest sorrows. And so, without truly realizing it, a three minute song has the ability to completely tear us apart or piece us back together.
That is why when it comes to grief, music can be so impactful. It allows the mind and body to fully process a loss. The lyrics and melody of a song speak the words of grief better than one can truly articulate. Thus, by listening, the barriers once established to prevent falling apart are broken down, diminishing the little control we have left and destroying any sense of composure we strived to achieve.
To some, this power music holds is terrifying. To hand over one's control and composure– things so safely guarded– is a daunting thought. To willingly let these things go is to allow oneself to completely succumb to the emotions so deeply buried and what then? Will we be able to continue normally after? Can we reconstruct the barrier it took seconds for a song to tear down but years to build?
To others, though, the power music holds can be beneficial. It creates an outlet for the emotions we struggle to experience and gives words to the feelings we cannot communicate effectively ourselves. As I’ve learned through listening to select songs, sometimes it is necessary to lose control because bottling up emotions doesn’t rid you of them, it only allows them to fester.
I suppose that’s what happened when I listened to “All I Want.” The words spoke so accurately to the emotions I felt and the sadness of the melody perfectly aligned with the heartbreak I endured.
With one play of the song, I lost my control and my composure, both of which I worked so hard to maintain. I didn’t want to face reality, I didn’t want to uncover the wreckage my mother’s loss created. I just wanted to push through, to pretend everything was okay and that I was okay. Yet, with one listen, I could no longer ignore the emotions brewing within because things were not okay. I was not okay.
So while I didn't want to feel sad or weak or out of control, I still appreciated these emotions as the song played and my tears fell. Music had created a safe space. I not only struggled to be emotionally vulnerable around others, I also struggled to be when all alone. It didn't matter that there was no one else to see my pain because in a strange way, I had become my own public audience. I suppose music helped me break down this barrier: it was a guiding light when it came to the feelings of grief I struggled to understand on my own.
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My sister told me last weekend that she’s pregnant. She’s 31 years old and has been married for over five years but getting pregnant was something she had been somewhat pushing off. I think aside from the weight gain, nausea, and other side effects, she has been mostly worried about going through the process without my mother.
I found out today that my sister is most likely miscarrying. Ironically, I was told the sad news as “Good Life” by OneRepublic played in my ears. Life didn’t feel so good at that moment knowing we will be grieving a baby that was never given the chance at life.
It’s strange how grief works. How you can grieve someone or something without ever having it in the first place. How you can anticipate grief before loss has even occurred. And how you can grieve for someone else’s loss more than your own.
I think in this scenario, the last is what I felt most when I heard she was miscarrying. I felt more grief for my sister than myself because while I will lose something, she will lose so much more. That’s what makes me most upset: knowing how much sadness she will feel and how little I can do about it.
While my sister grieves what the miscarriage took from her, she will be doing so without my mother by her side– a fear she’s battled with since before she ever considered getting pregnant. it is also an added layer of grief. Grief for the baby she will never meet and grief for the mother she no longer has.
Unfortunately, that’s how grief works. We can mourn someone we knew for so long and someone we never knew at all. In both scenarios, we find that no matter how much time you’ve shared with someone, the loss of them will always hurt.
Thus, grief is often unavoidable and so, while my sister mourns the mother she loved for so many years, she will also be mourning a baby she was not given the chance to love in the first place.
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I went on anxiety medication shortly after my mother was diagnosed. I had developed some unhealthy eating habits and was struggling with body dysmorphia before my mother got sick, but as her health worsened, so did these issues. As junior year rolled around, I was concerningly thin– it was as if my weight was the only thing I had power over while everything else spun out of control. The meds helped to an extent, but they didn’t come without side effects.
When my mother passed away, I struggled to cry. I wondered if it was due to the extended period of grief I had endured since her diagnosis, but this seemed unlikely. I was filled with too much sadness and, yet, tears rarely streaked my face. There must be something wrong with me– a thought that continuously crossed my mind. Aside from the infrequent breakdown, it felt as if something was inhibiting me from crying: as if there were a gate closing off my tear ducts. I was surrounded by grief, consumed in it, so why couldn’t I express it normally?
Upon asking my father, he told me it was my medication. That the tiny pill I swallow every morning was limiting my ability to cry. The thing that is supposed to help me with my emotions is hindering me from expressing them. While people expected me to act one way, I acted another and as a result, they were dumbfounded by my strength. I, on the other hand, wondered if it was actually numbness that they mistook for resilience.
While I now had a reason to blame for my lack of emotion, I never felt the way in which I grieved was acceptable. With each August 6th, the day my mother passed away, or September 8th, my mother’s birthday, I continue to feel emotionally inept. Maybe things truly do get easier with time or maybe I really am strong; however, as years pass and anniversaries are sadly acknowledged, I continue to feel that my process of grief has been inadequate.
Grief is subjective and, yet, it is experienced completely publicly. Like many other things in life, there is a “normal” way to grieve based on societal standards. To some, my composure may have been perceived as strength, while to others it was a cause for concern. Personally, my composure felt wrong: if my lack of tears is a result of my anxiety medication, then I am numb and if it is not, then I am damaged.
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I want to believe that grief becomes more bearable overtime but when I really think about it, I’m not entirely sure I’m convinced of that. Over four years later and I cannot perfectly recall my mother’s voice. I cannot remember how her hugs felt or her laugh sounded. I even struggle to picture the details of her face without a photograph to fill in the gaps. It is these obvious characteristics– the ones that are so normal– that fade with time, but it doesn’t necessarily lessen the pain.
In fact, it often makes it worse. It makes me angry. Angry that I can’t perfectly recall my mother’s face without a picture to remind me or hear her laugh without the assistance of a recording. Angry about having deleted voicemails she left me and forgetting important things she told me. Angry that the world took my best friend from me when we should’ve had so much more time together.
Maybe we don’t acknowledge the everyday qualities of a person enough because they seem so constant and unchanging. That is, until they’re no longer there to remind us of what we’ve always been overlooking. Or maybe our minds intentionally forget these tiny characteristics in an attempt to help us adjust to the loss of something we were accustomed to for so long.
Maybe I just took so many things for granted. Things as small as her smile and as large as her love. Things I unknowingly experienced for the last time and ones that I will never be able to replicate in the future.
How can I ever fully move on when the best person I knew was there one day and gone the next? How can I ever stop grieving when I am constantly reminded of the things I can no longer remember and the ones I can never experience again? How can I gain closure when I will never understand how something so horrible could happen to someone so amazing?
I have a friend who lost his mother to cancer when he was very young and I often wonder, rather morbidly, if that would have been easier: if losing my mother before I was old enough to understand the gravity of the situation would have been less painful. Maybe it would have, but I can’t help but feel sick with the thought.
I would take my pain over his if given the chance because I had the privilege of knowing and loving my mother– a privilege he was completely robbed of. I feel sorrow for myself, but I feel worse for him: he was never given the chance to know his mother let alone develop a love for her.
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I am the baby of the family. With sisters who are seven and 10 years older than I am, it seems as if no matter what age I turn or how mature I am, I will always be given this title. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great one to have and after losing my mother, I feel extremely fortunate to have significantly older sisters. Though, while being the youngest comes with its perks, it has left me in a position of inferiority at times.
I like to believe that I have always been mature for my age. Wise beyond my years. I suppose this could be a result of having older siblings than my peers or just how I was raised to act. However, there was no level of maturity at age 17 that could have prepared me for the loss of my mother. In fact, losing her made me feel lost. I still had so much growing up to do in such a short amount of time and the things I had yet to learn now seemed completely up to me to figure out.
My sisters had lives of their own. They had adult jobs, pets, apartments, and significant others. I, on the other hand, was entering my last year of high school and once again, it was clear that I was the baby: the one who needed to be sheltered from the pain and unburdened by all family responsibilities.
To them, it seemed as if continuing my life as an average teenager was the best way to cope with the fact that my life was no longer normal and it never would be again. Now, I’m not sure if pretending everything was okay– that I was okay– was truly best for me.
I go to therapy once a week. My therapist, Andrea, once taught me about the term “window of tolerance.” It essentially describes the emotional threshold in which we are comfortable or the range of stimulation we can successfully function within on a daily basis. We strive to stay in this window because it is where we feel safest and most secure.
The day my mother was diagnosed with cancer, my window of tolerance became smaller and my fear of leaving its boundaries became much larger. My subconscious would do anything to prevent disassociation or the opposite: uncontrollable anxiety. However, after multiple years have passed, I still struggle to widen this window.
Over four years ago, my family did what they believed was best and that was to detach me from the situation– to motivate me to continue normally: to hang out with friends, go to parties, play sports, put my studies first. As the baby, it was not my responsibility to put my life on pause to care for my sick mother. Though, without intending to or even realizing it, they replaced this responsibility with another one.
They wanted me to be okay and so, I was. I hung out with friends and went to parties. I played sports and put my studies first. I became so good at pretending everything was normal that it became difficult for me to actually face reality.
Now, over four years later, I continue to play this role of “pretend” even when I don’t mean to or, more importantly, want to. I have become so unbelievably skilled at hiding my emotions from others that I have managed to hide them from myself. I don’t just feel comfortable in my window of tolerance, I live in it. This terrifies me because while I barricade myself from emotions of sadness, I may also be hindering my ability to fully experience the ones of joy.
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I grew up in an extremely small town in the suburbs of New York. I attended public school and still, my graduating class consisted of 136 kids, most of whom I had known since preschool. People I learned the alphabet with were now standing next to me in a cap and gown, preparing to leave the tiny bubble we called home.
Throughout the years, there were the inevitable changes that occurred within friend groups. Being a small grade didn’t exempt us from cliques and mean girls. Eventually, though, people began to settle and friend groups became more formalized. While some friendships came and went, there were the people who remained consistent. So much so, that our moms formed a friendship, too.
Of course I wasn’t the only person in my friend group who was the youngest child, but the age gap between me and my sisters was definitely the largest. In fact, I became used to people assuming I was an “accident,” when in reality I was completely planned. So once my sisters had graduated from high school, many of their friends’ parents had moved on from our town. For my mother, she still had a middle schooler to raise, leaving her with many more years of parent-teacher conferences, report cards, and mediocre sports games.
I suppose that’s why she became so close with my friends’ mothers and my friends became so close with her. My house was where we did homework after school and hung out on the weekends. This wasn’t solely due to the fact that we had the best snack selection, but because of how comfortable they were around my mother and how close they grew to her. So when she got sick and passed away, it wasn’t just my family who suffered from her loss.
That was the beautiful thing about my small town: when we needed people the most, they were there.
After my mother was diagnosed with cancer, a meal train was organized and each night someone different would bring over prepared foods for our entire family. When she had doctor’s appointments, her friends would take turns driving her and when she was at her sickest, they would come to our house to keep her company.
It wasn’t until my mother’s memorial service, though, that I truly understood how many people cared. It was seeing my highschool teachers, sport coaches, and kids from my grade who I was only acquaintances with. It was their support I hadn’t known I needed.
Now, as a senior in college, I’ve realized that the best friends I’ve made here will never get to meet my mother and as much as I tell them about her, they will never truly understand how amazing she was.
Grief is a difficult topic for anyone to approach, but it is even more challenging when new people come into your life. People who care but cannot fully relate because they weren’t there when the loss happened. They didn’t know who I was then, they only know who I am now and with each new person who enters my life, I am reminded of this.
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I was told recently by my sister that my mother’s wish was to see me graduate and go off to college– a wish she was never granted. However, until I heard this, I hadn’t let myself acknowledge that this is a wish I had and still have, fully knowing that it will never come true. Not only did my mother not make it to my high school graduation or my send off to college, but she will not be there to witness me step into the real world in a few months and experience all the milestones that come with it.
So now, I grieve what could have been. I am already missing my mother’s presence at my college graduation, my wedding, the birth of my first child and, still, there is no amount of time that can prepare you for the grief you will inevitably face in the future. There is no amount of time that can heal the pain you have yet to experience.
The mind can strip you of the little memories: the laughs, the smiles, the hugs. It can protect you from the sadness of the present by blocking out bits of the past. But no matter how hard it tries and how powerful it is, the mind cannot avoid the sadness of the future.
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My mother was an exceptional woman so it makes sense why she was loved by so many. I used to get annoyed when the two of us were driving somewhere and she would be getting call after call. Once she was done talking to one person, she would be on the phone with another. I’d sit in the passenger seat, overhearing conversations that I had little to no interest in, just waiting for her to be free to talk to me. I complained that I felt like her secretary, dialing people whose call my mother missed while speaking to someone else. She would get mad when I hung up before she could leave a message. It was a habit, people my age don’t leave messages.
It meant a lot when the same people my mother spoke to everyday, and even those she didn’t, made an effort after her diagnosis. Ironically, it is the worst things in life that bring out the best parts in people. I admired those who showed up, who supported my family and my mother. That’s the beauty of a close-knit community.
Though, when my mother got sick and passed away, I felt similar to the way I often had during those car rides, itching for my mother to give me her undivided attention. I felt annoyed. So many people had loved my mother and were deeply saddened by her loss. I never doubted these people’s love or their sadness, but she wasn’t their mother. She was mine. They could share their condolences and join us in our grief, but they would never understand what the grief was like for me because she wasn’t their mother. She was mine.
Loss makes people uncomfortable. It also makes people selfish. In a way of trying to sympathize, they make the situation about themselves without even realizing it. They may have loved my mother, but they never loved her like I did. Their loss is not similar to mine. It felt as if I shared my mother enough when she was alive, I no longer wanted to share her now that she was gone.
It’s like that song everyone has. The one that you love so deeply that you think it's yours and yours only. Even though everyone in the world has the ability to listen to this song, it’s as if they will never listen to it the way you do. Personally, that’s “Chandelier” by Sia for me. It’s a very random song but when I hear it, I think about listening to it with my mother. For some reason, we both really liked it.
I can’t fully remember when we established a shared appreciation for the song, but it feels like ours and I’m not entirely sure why. I know I’m not the only one who loves this song and yet, I feel like no one else loves it the way I do. They can’t possibly. It’s mine to love independently from everyone else, just like my mother is. No one can understand the capacity of her death because she wasn’t their mother, she was mine.
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Though, maybe I took these people's words of condolences and shared sadness for granted. What I could not have anticipated all those years ago is that my mother's death would be similar to a song that's been replaced by a newer and more popular one: its relevance would dwindle.
With each passing year, less and less people reach out to my family on my mother's birthday or the day of her death. Those who seemed so consistently present when she was alive and even when she was sick, became so distant that it felt like they had completely removed themselves from the situation altogether. It's not that I didn't expect people to move on. I just didn't expect them to move on as quickly as they did.
All I can hope is that my mother's memory is like The Beatles' "Hey Jude" or John Lennon's "Imagine." I hope that she is a melody that never gets old and one that is played on the radio decades from now because personally, I think she is the most iconic song of all time.