40 Years Motherless
Today, November 18, 2020, marks 40 years from the day my mom died. She had recently turned 47, and I was 16, a junior in high school. When you’re a teenager, it’s hard to grasp how young 47 truly is.
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Mom had been diagnosed with uterine cancer, and it was quite advanced by the time of detection. As I recall, I’d already heard of cancer at the time, but my mom was the first person I knew who had it. This seems unfathomable now, given how many people we all know that have been impacted by this cruel disease.
While I know others have dealt with way worse, losing one’s mom at 16 is obviously not ideal. She’d been sick about a year, really sick towards the end, and while I did the best I could to help her, I just didn’t have the tools at that age to adequately grasp or manage the situation. I would sit with her on the bed after school, share stories of my day, hold her hand and watch the news or Phil Donahue with her. I remember often bringing home Jell-o when it was the only thing she could keep down.
Dad was also struggling and about to become a widower at 50. He kept working, did what he could for mom, and oversaw the household, but wasn’t really sure what to do with me. I have two older brothers who were both away at college at the time. A less than ideal situation for them, too.
My parents were of the generation where you just got on with things. No whining, no drama. While I had a very happy, loving and comfortable childhood, parents didn’t open up to talk about and share things with their children like they do now. (Or so I’ve witnessed; I’m childless by choice.) Kids weren’t friends with their parents back then. Thankfully, I have an independent nature, which helped when I had to start taking care of myself at age 15. I got myself to school, kept my grades up, did my own laundry, hung out with my friends, played on the tennis team, worked a part-time job, grocery shopped and ate a lot of Burger King (hey, don’t judge).
Looking back, with Mom now having been gone so long, my memories of her have admittedly faded over the years. There’s a tendency to martyr the dead, and I recognize that Mom had many human flaws like the rest of us. But she was a cultured, classy, educated woman who was born just a little too early to have had the opportunities her potential warranted.
Mom was super smart. In fact, a grade school teacher called her parents in, recommending she skip ahead two grades, but they declined. She attended Radcliffe before females were allowed into Harvard. She was very politically active and engaged in local social causes where we grew up. As kids, it seemed like we were endlessly pounding the pavement, distributing political flyers throughout various neighborhoods.
Despite her pack-a-day habit, Mom was also an athlete. She was an avid tennis player and had been a great swimmer in high school. Hiking in her beloved Indiana Dunes was her favorite.
But where her strength and grace were truly showcased was on the ice rink. There was never a time we went skating at local rinks or on the river without someone asking if she gave lessons.
I’ve always referred to mom as the original antiquer. She was always on the hunt for her next score. We’d be on a family trip, driving back from the Atlantic Ocean and she’d have ‘heard about a place’ she wanted to check out. This inevitably led us down some country lane, parking in front of a huge barn she’d pick through while three kids moaned in the back seat. But she had a great eye and we had a beautiful home from her efforts. Mom wore no jewelry, not even a wedding band, so I’m thrilled to have some of her antique treasures today. Aside from memories and photos, they’re all I have.
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Mom died at Northwestern Hospital in Chicago. I’d asked dad to take me to see her about a week before losing her. Knowing what shape she was in, he was hesitant to take me this time, but finally relented. Mom was hooked up to numerous machines and heavily medicated. I’m certain she wasn’t aware of our presence. It was the last time I saw her.
The day after Mom died, I got up and took myself to school as I would any other morning. A handful of friends knew what had happened, but none of my teachers did. I remember one friend I’d known since grade school, kind of a jock, walking up to me in the hallway, placing both hands on my shoulders, looking me straight in the eye and saying how sorry he was. But others either didn’t know what had happened or (understandably) didn’t know what to say. It’s bizarre to think about how differently things would be handled today.
My parents were neither traditional nor religious. There was no obituary, no service, no nothing. I assume my parents had discussed this plan and agreed to it, but I’ve always wondered if my aunts and uncles—Mom’s sisters and brothers—had fought this at all. When Dad died in 2011, it was the same thing. Or the same nothing, I guess. But by then my brothers and I were grown adults and able to understand his requests and promise to abide by them.
I’m lucky to have life-long friends I cherish, but really, very few people at this point in my life ever even met my mom. I remember making a new friend where I now live. We were sharing our histories and I mentioned losing my mom as a teenager. When they asked if we were still in touch with her family, I was taken aback as that thought had never crossed my mind, but of course that fracture could easily have happened. I’m so grateful it didn’t as my maternal relations were and are some of my favorite people in this world.
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I have a very strong resemblance to my mom. Startlingly so for those who grew up with her. I’ve always been politically engaged as an adult, and I’m thankful to her for planting that seed in me. I love to “thrift” and know I also got that gene from her. In hindsight, I feel badly about the moaning I did as a kid.
On the flip side, given my early loss, I can sometimes lack empathy when my peers become helicopter parents over the most basic challenges their 20- or 30-something kids are facing. I guess because I had to figure it all out, I like to think everyone can. It’s something I continue to work on. And when a friend recently commented that I rarely accept help from them, it gave me pause for thought. I’m still learning that being independent doesn’t mean that I need to fight every battle—little or big—alone. Vulnerability is tough when you had to self-protect at such a young age.
Of course I feel cheated that I never got to have an adult relationship with my mom, but there’s no residual anger about it at this point, and I avoid pity parties. Forty years later, I sometimes wonder what she would have gone on to accomplish. Or what her dreams were. I also wonder who I would have become under her influence and with her guidance. It’s likely I’d have ended up on a different path to different places with different people and a different life. It’s odd to contemplate.
But I am forever grateful for the time we had together and the traits I inherited from her. Well, maybe not the bad hair, but it’s almost all good stuff. I don’t judge myself and wonder if she’d be proud. Instead, I try my best to live a life of integrity and passion to honor her memory.
In memory of Clementine Singleton Morfas, 1933 - 1980
