Motherless Mother’s Day

Gayle Kabaker
Spiralbound
Published in
3 min readMay 12, 2018

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Mom pregnant with me, and her cat

Mother’s Day can be a loaded holiday for those of us without moms. On this day every year, I am extra aware of not having had a mom for a really long time.

She was 48 and I was 23 when she died. She was 26 when I was born. I’ve had 36 Mother’s Days without her. For 29 of these years I’ve been a mother myself.

Art I created for a book of Mom’s recipes.

I looked at my 23-year-old son recently and had an epiphany, saying, “I was exactly your age when my mom died. Can you imagine?” (Wow, way to be a downer.)

He responded with a hug, and said, “I’d be lost without you, Mom.” My choice to be vegan, to exercise — really, to do everything I can to be healthy — is in part simply so my kids get to have (healthy) me around for as long as possible.

My amazing kids.

I see my friends beginning to lose parents who are in their 80s and 90s. I know it’s still hard and very sad — but I think to myself…

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