A Birthday Card to my Dead Mom

Dear Mom,

Happy birthday.

Is that what you say? Does a birthday still count once you’re dead? Does the day of your birth have any meaning, any validity, where you are? Maybe it’s like that movie where the day you move on to the next stage — the afterlife or whatever it is — is your new birthday. I hope so. It seems like a nice idea that the day you left us is the day that you were born into something else pretty wonderful.

For us here though, it is your birthday. It’s the 11th birthday we’ve marked without you. I know people say it never gets easier to miss someone once they’re gone. But it has. I don’t have my traditional January stomach ache this year or the trademark itching all over my skin that feels like I am allergic to my own body. I feel melancholy of course, but mostly, I feel ready to face this day.

The kids have gotten so big. This year, I remembered you aloud, as I always do on this day, and this year, they really took an interest. Well, mostly. Because my kids have inherited a lot of you. Kai with his great big giant heart decided we should throw you a party. He wants to get a cake. (He also inherited our need to mark all occasions with food.) Kenzo has your wild curls and your way with words.

“Your mom? She’s the one that’s dead right. Yeah, I remember. Your mom is dead.”

Thanks, kid.

Mika looks the most like you. She has your fair skin and your (our) little mouth that is only little in appearance as she is opinionated and fierce and freely gives cuddles and kisses.

You would like them. They’re a handful. You always loved a kid with gusto.

It’s been 11 years and 1 day since we last spoke. It was January 19 when you called me. I told you I was done. I told you I needed to get off this train. I was so angry with you. I was so hurt by you. I couldn’t bring myself to believe that it wasn’t you — it was the addiction. I couldn’t tease those apart. If you wanted it badly enough, I thought, you would stop. I held on to that for a lot of years. 11 to be exact.

But, I get it now. I forgive you. I really, truly, with my whole being, forgive you.

I was looking through photos this morning, and I found this. I have seen this one before, but this time, it caught my eye. In fact, it took the wind out of me. Every time I have looked at this photo, I have seen you and me and my brother in no, particularly remarkable situation. In fact, I kind of wondered why this picture was even taken.

But today, my scrolling finger stopped dead on this image. Today I saw me — not as a little girl in pigtails smiling for Dad’s camera. I saw me as a hot and tired mom who had clearly just broken up an argument between siblings. Me, feeling exasperated, that I had planned this family vacation, spent hard-earned money that could have been used to finally fix our kitchen or buy my daughter’s expensive dance costume, while my son sulked and my daughter gloated over the outcome of the scolding that preceded this picture.

Today, I saw you again, not a sad and angry alcoholic. I saw you. The mom who poured herself into her kids, making her entire world central to their happiness, much to her later detriment. The mom who went to night school to earn an associate’s degree to teach her daughter she could be more than just a “babysitter like her mom” as she dreamed in her 2nd-grade essay.

Today I saw my mom who was hurting. Who was lonely. Who was struggling with the same depression and anxiety that I have now recognized and treated in myself.

On January 19, 2008, I told you I was done. Because it hurt too much. I don’t regret that. I learned from what you hadn’t done that I needed to protect myself too because I mattered just as much as the people I loved.

On January 20, 2019, I tell myself again that I am done. This time though, I am done being angry. I am done being hurt. Because it hurts too much to not fully forgive you. And myself.

When you were alive, I gave you a birthday card every year that said you were the best mom in the world. And for so many years I believed that was the truth. This year, in this card that I am writing, I tell you that you were the best mom you could be — and that is enough. I tell myself that I, the daughter of a flawed and loving and compassionate and hurting woman, am enough.

So happy birthday to you mom. And thank you for this gift.