By LJ Herman“My day doesn’t look anything like yours no matter how hard I try to make it…
Some days I try to pretend like it’s a day where I can call her, but I’m choosing not to call her instead. Some days I just dial her number to see ‘Calling Mom’ on my phone.
Some days I grab my grief by the horns and I tell it that talking to her out loud is good enough. I tell grief that I don’t need to hear her voice because her words are etched in my heart.
Yet most days, the reality is, that’s not good enough and never will be. I wake up and realize all over again, every morning, the reality of my grief. The reality that she is still gone and no amount of pleading or begging can bring her back even for one second. Not even for a quick ‘I love you’ or hug.
Chances are I’ll have exciting news during my day, even something as simple as surviving a grocery store trip with all three children by myself. I’ll want to call her as soon as I get home to tell her.
Maybe I’ll have a bad day and need to just hear her calming voice telling me even when the world feels like it’s against me, she’s always in my corner, always on my side, even when I’m wrong.
I can call but she will never pick up.
I’ll have a moment in my day where motherhood seems so overwhelming and I think I’m failing at everything. That I am not doing everything right or doing the best I can as a mom and I’ll want to call her and just cry into the phone. I won’t have to say anything because she’s the only one who can understand my tears without the words. She’ll know all the right things to say. She will know to tell me that motherhood is messy, that none of us are perfect and that is the beauty of being a mom: that there is no perfect way to do it.
She will tell me I am a great mom and she knows this because she knows my heart because I’m part of her.
I can call but she will never call back.
I’ll have a day where I just want to pick up the phone and call my mom and talk for hours and hours about things that matter and things that don’t. Where I want to talk about everything and nothing and somehow get off the phone feeling like all the world’s problems were solved, at least mine anyways.
I can talk to her about all these things, but she can’t answer back.
I’ll have a moment in time where I am 32 years old and still have questions that I want to ask my mom and I will never be able to get her answers because I was robbed of that time, robbed of the answers to those questions.
As a motherless daughter, my day looks a lot different from yours if you are able to pick up the phone and call your mom.
My day starts and ends differently every single day and always will.”
This story was written by Nikki Pennington of Grief To Hope with Nikki Pennington. The article originally appeared here. Submit your story here, and subscribe to our best love stories here.
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