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If my mom were still alive, yesterday would have been her 76th birthday.
I don't remember my mother's birthday falling on Easter before. But it must have. In fact, I don't remember my mom ever making a fuss about her own birthdays. I do remember one year my Uncle handing me two dollars to run down to the drugstore and get her a present at the last minute. I got her a pair of cheap sunglasses. In a brown paper bag. One of my many regrets. I did not make a big deal out of her birthdays. And I don't even remember her birthday ever falling on Easter.
She used to make a big thing about Easter, though. Come to think of it, she made a big deal out of lots of holidays. I swear I never thought about that before just this moment. She liked to celebrate all holidays, secular and religious. Christmas was a very very big deal. But later in life she started using any holiday as a reason to send a card or a present. Twenty years ago, who was sending Hallowe'en cards? She used to.
She just looked for and took advantage of opportunities to express love. Sob.
Easter is a holiday with a LOT of special memories attached. When I was a little girl, Easter was like living Barbie day for my mom. She spent a ridiculous amount of money on cute Easter outfits for me. She would often buy a matching outfit for my cousin Cheryl, who was four years older, whose parents owned the house we lived in. But I was her dress up doll. The only time in my life when I was an appropriate size for my age, she would go all out every single year. Easter meant an entirely new outfit from the skin out. New underwear. New dress, new slip. New socks and shoes. A new spring coat (!). Mom liked hats and I think she tried to get me to wear hats, but I did not like being the living dress up doll. So the hat thing did not work.
Somewhere there is a picture of me in one of these outfits, in the backyard of my Godmother's house. She lived near the church and we would sometimes stop at her house on the way home from church on Easter Sunday so she could see my new outfit. My memory of the photo is that I am wearing a pale purple dress, those little anklet socks with ruffles around the edges. Mary Jane patent leather shoes. Bending over toward the camera to pick up something off the ground (part of an Easter egg hunt?) but looking up at the camera as if my name had been called.
Mom used to make easter baskets every year too. ENORMOUS easter baskets. Full of that weird plastic grass you can't find anymore. I saved some of the empty baskets for years. I don't care much for milk chocolate. So I'd eat the jelly beans and maybe the ears off the bunny and leave most of the rest for Cheryl.
My favorite thing in the basket was the hard boiled eggs. We'd spend hours on Saturday in the kitchen dyeing eggs. Me, mom, Cheryl, Cheryl's mother (my aunt, mom's only sister). I don't remember whether my grandmother would be there too. This is one of the few happy childhood memories that does not have my grandmother figuring prominently. She must have been there...
Anyway, we would write on the eggs with wax crayons and then when we dyed them the words we wrote would be readable because the dye would not stick to the wax. The messages on the eggs would be names of family members, or "Happy Easter". One famous year I wrote HELLO on an egg but for some reason the O didn't have enough wax and got covered over. We laughed about the HELL easter egg for years. This was back when people did not say that word in polite company, and children did not say it at all!
My mom really went all out on a lot of holidays. I now see she was just using them as excuses/reasons to do things for me. When I was older and she was trying to reach out to me and I was distant from her, she would usually send me a little check at Easter saying: get yourself an Easter Basket, baby.
I have a hard time with self care, because of the early years of my life when my mom was not the caretaker she became as she matured. The years of neglect and not feeling like I am worth anyone's effort, including my own, are still with me. But at least yesterday and today I enjoyed a fond memory of a time when mom tried and succeeded in making a loving gesture that I accepted. And one of the positive things that has happened in my grief process lately is that I am trying to internalize some of that later-year caretaking in her name.
For example, when I am trying to make a decision about spending time or money or effort on something that would make my life easier, and I start to feel like this isn't worth it just for me, I used to ask myself: would I spend this time money or effort to do this for a friend or family member I really cared about? Interesting idea that—because it begs the question: am I someone I really care about? Sadly the answer is often no.
But lately I've been asking: if my mommy were here, would she do this for me? That's been a very revealing change. It's as if I can hear her voice saying: "my baby needs to take a taxi home tonight because it's very cold and she's worked an extra long day today" or "my baby deserves to get the codfish even if it isn't on sale because she's been craving fish" or "my baby needs to call the landlord and tell him to fix the bathroom sink".
It works with negative things too. She used to say, putting herself down with respect to her poor health habits, "at least use me for a negative example!" Now paradoxically I am using her for a negative example, but in a positive way (?!?). When I reach for the extra helping, or the salt shaker, or start thinking of ways to get out of my exercise appointment, a little voice says: "Baby! I don't want you to end up with my illnesses and the suffering that resulted from them! Take good care of yourself!" Over and over I hear her Sunday night question on the phone: "Are you taking your vitamins and eating vegetables?" as I set out my night time vitamins while green beans warm in the microwave.
I've had a new dress for Easter every year of my life. Even in years when I was really broke and could not afford to get a whole new outfit, I could usually scrape the money together for at least a new dress. One memorable year I went to Filene's Basement and cried years of joy because I was able to find an Easter dress that fit me and it was under $10. This year I almost skipped the new dress tradition. Broke in addition to busy made it hard for me to shop, even on line. And for those who have seen me you know I'm not a size that can walk into any store and expect to find something that fits.
But the "caretaker mom voice" kept calling out to me: My birthday is falling on Easter this year and I want my baby to have a new dress!
So last Wednesday at the last minute I ended up buying a new dress. And shoes. And underwear. And paying for two day delivery. With money I didn't really have to spare that was supposed to go in my account that helps pay my taxes. I stopped short of a coat, even though I need a spring coat—the symbolism had already been fulfilled. The caretaker mom voice was pleased.
This is a new stage of grieving. The sense that she is always with me, and in a positive way, is suddenly very strong. I've moved from feeling her absence very keenly and from that being moved to weep bitter tears from the hole in my life, to feeling her presence very warmly and from that being moved to take better care of myself.
Somehow, after death, she is inspiring me take better care of myself, to make up for all the years I did not take good care of myself, to make up for all the years she did not take good care of me. Of all the surprises the grief experience has thrown at me, this is definitely the most pleasant one.
I find myself looking for opportunities to express self-love, in memory of my mother's love.
This could be the start of something big.
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