I have existed eleven years without her.

 

She passed on a Saturday and this year anniversary of her death on the English calendar and her Jewish Yahrzeit are on the same day, on Sabbath (Saturday). 

 

There is only so much I can say about the ache in my heart, which continues all these years later. That while I am now used to living without her it certainly doesn’t make me miss her less. That as I watch the television show ‘The Goldbergs’ with my kid I think of her. Although she was slightly less cringe-worthy than the mother on that show, the character, especially her devotion to her children and her father make me think of her all the time. She was constantly, as my father would have said and as they do on the show, mixing in. 

 

Nothing mattered more to her than her family. My sisters and myself, my father, her parents, later her grandchildren. She spent most of her life worrying about us. And I wonder what she would think about us now. About my relationship with my sisters. In her mind we were so lucky to have each other and while this is true and I love and cherish them I know it doesn’t look the way she wanted or would remember it. 

 

I no longer live near them, moved back to Canada, and my brother in law passed away and two of my nieces and one nephew live in New York. And those nieces are married with children and my other nephew just got married. I am no longer married. My son’s Bar Mitzvah had to be cancelled due to a global pandemic.

 

If she were alive we would have covered these topics as I drove home. I would know exactly what she thought about each of these things and we undoubtedly would have reviewed them in detail again and again. I like to believe that as I got older and kinder and before her illness took over I was often her confidant, the friend she always wanted her children to be. She told me of slights and hurts that overwhelmed and saddened her and we laughed for hours, often over the same stories. 

 

My mantra regarding my parents is quality over quantity but the truth is I still feel cheated. The first time I left the house with my then husband and kid after she passed I had no one to phone to tell them I was leaving and where I was going. I said it aloud and I knew it, and still do, that no one will ever care about me that way again. And I miss that knowing as much as I miss the talking and laughing.

 

So tonight I will pour myself a glass of wine and participate in the Zoom Shabbat service with my kid and when the Rabbi asks if anyone has a Yahrzeit I will talk about my mother. I will keep her memory alive and give her soul a blessing wherever it is not by going to the cemetery or even with my sisters but my doing what I do--writing about her and talking about her.

 

Still yearning…