There was a time—not long ago… last year in fact—when I didn’t think I’d ever call my mom again on Mother’s Day. Not out of resentment, not even anger, really. Just… distance. Emotional, spiritual, and historical distance. I had accepted that our relationship was more parallel than intersecting: two women walking side by side, close enough to touch, yet unable to bridge the gap due to years of silent resentment that seemed to grow and grow until it fed into indifference.
But sometimes during moments of great heartbreak, can come healing. My boyfriend of the last ten and a half years—my anchor, my constant—walked away, leaving me holding on for my life to a rope that’s just floating in the night. And in the silence he left behind, I found myself aching for something I’d never really had: a mother who felt like home.
When I think of home, I think of the distant Pocono Mountains and the quiet and solitude it brought. I think of the loneliness that threatened to swallow me whole. A loneliness that even now, I am still running from. Maybe I’ve been trying to outrun my entire life, which has become a fundamental part of my existence.
Even now, I hate the quiet. I put on the TV for background noise to feel some sense of belonging to someone I will never know. But now, when I think of home, I think of my neighbor’s—Barb’s—deck. Barb was the first person to nurture my love of cats and my love of sewing. She mothered me when I didn’t know that that was what I was longing for. I think of our talks over tea on the porch swing and the gentle chirping of the birds.
She was the first person I told about my breakup, and she gave me the courage to reach out to my Mother and to let her know. I don’t know why I was so afraid… but I was. I was afraid of the failure that had become my relationship. I was afraid of the question of why it didn’t work out, of why it didn’t end in marriage.
It was overwhelming at first, turning toward her. Reaching out. She wasn’t used to being leaned on—especially not by me. I wasn’t used to leaning, if anything I try to project a false sense of confidence. That I am untouchably stable and doing exceptionally well, even when I am struggling.
Our conversations felt stilted, a little too polite, too careful. Like wearing shoes that don’t quite fit but refusing to take them off because at least they offer protection. And yet, she showed up. In her own way. A text. A shared bible verse. A question that, even if slightly misphrased, meant “I care.” She didn’t know how to hold all of my pain—but she tried. And for the first time in my life, I let her.
There is still a gap. We are still two very different women raised by different versions of the same past. But the gap no longer feels like an unscalable cliff—it feels more like a river we’re learning to wade through together. Awkward, slow, ungraceful. But together.
So this Mother’s Day, I want to write an ode not just to the mothers who were everything we needed them to be, but to the ones who are trying, in their own complicated, imperfect ways, to become that now.
To the girls who used to dread Mother’s Day: I see you. I am you. And if you find yourself suddenly wanting to call her, to let her hold just a corner of your grief, even if she’s never been good at that sort of thing—I hope you do.
She might not know how to answer. But you’ll be surprised how powerful it can be just to hear her voice say, “I’m here.”
And maybe, this year, that’s enough.
SPEAK OUT! SPEAK LOUD! One Way Conversations and My Mother: An Ode to Mother’s Day for Gals Who Dread Mother’s Day
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