My mother’s side of the family is huge, like too many cousins to count huge, like she was number 7 of 11 huge. So many adventures had been done.created.accomplished for the first time before I was even born. It was unlikely to be the first to do anything as our family grew.
But not “first daughter grieving mother” -I was the first. Despite a sizable amount of family we love having passed on, I was the first daughter to loose her mother in our huge family. As I looked to the left and right for family to talk to, to understand, there were (are) many days I felt so breathtakingly alone. Even all of my mother’s sisters were still enjoying their mother (my grandma outlived two daughters and a son).
Life will never be fair.
But that first year was the fucking unfairest of them all.
People don’t know what to say to you when you loose your mother, esp if they haven’t lost theirs. I was able to welcome phone calls.hugs.well wishes with love, but grief makes you a shell of a person for a long time, years maybe.
I spent that first year pretty mad at the world, not at any real person, just existence in general, and just mad at the hand I was dealt. It was incredibly hard for me to see mother/daughter relationships struggling, hard for me hear people complain about their mothers- Truth, that may always be.
Life will never be fair.
I am thankful for the new friendships that grew out of that dark first year, the “daughters with no mothers club” the “my mom died way too young club”. Two clubs whose members would love to never be a part of, but embrace you because they are completely in it. They got you.
Today, five years later, I am no longer that mad person I used to be. I have learned to channel life’s unfairness into ways others might not see. For example I rarely miss the chance to photograph a mommy(or grandmother) with her child. one by one. even as they resist.
I have grown grateful for the friends who share photos of themselves with their mothers-or with their children- on vacations, at holidays, holding their grandchildren, crying, laughing, rejoicing. simply living.
Because at the end of that story- life will be unfair to them too.
They just don’t know it yet.