What tomorrow means to me

I have always watched Valentine's Day from afar, in part amused by the amount of money folks spend on over priced flowers, dinner, and chocolate, and in part with a sharp pain in my own heart.

Honestly, I don't really like celebrating the day itself that much. I have always felt a degree of discomfort on Valentine's Day, and a feeling of distance from the rest of my friends as they get excited about a romantic dinner, flowers, spending time with their partners. I face Valentine's Day with a fair amount of ennui. The reasons are two-fold.

One, I truly dislike the forced consumption of 'stuff' perpetuated through guilt and advertising. It's gross to me, really. While I appreciate a loving little gift and time with my husband, I don't have any interest in flocking to a restaurant and paying triple the price to eat by candlelight, to prove I am romantic.

And the bigger reason is that Valentine's Day does and will always mark an anniversary that isn't something to celebrate. My mother, in her deepest despair, took her life on Valentines' day in 1975 while my sister and I slept in the next room. We woke up the morning after to find her, a suicide note, and our half eaten chocolates she'd given us the night before.

Why she chose this day, I will never know, although I think it was a heat-of-the-moment decision, inspired by a fight she'd had with her then boyfriend, mixed with years of pain she had no way of knowing how to live with. And now, 43 years later, here I am on the eve of what should and could be a sweet little Hallmark holiday, realizing once again instead, that my mother would have been 73 this year. That I have now lived 21 years longer than she did. That I have grown up and lived my life, and always will live it without her. 

To those who didn't lose a mother at a young age, and who are now instead dealing with aging parents and all that brings, it might seem dramatic that my pain is still so real. It might seem like I live in the past, as if I haven't healed, haven't moved on. Yet I have, in so many ways. And I don't write this through tears. I forgive her. I love her. I understand her torment and while almost every day of my life I have longed for a mother, I don't hold any anger towards her for what she did. I have compassion. 

And, I still so often wish I could hug her. I wish I could have her meet my incredible son, her grandson. I wish I could share my life with her, and hear her say she is proud of me. I have longed for her love, her support, and the kind of relationship I see some of my friends having with their mothers. And, I know it's a fantasy. This is my life and she is not in it. And, tomorrow, I will raise a glass in her honor, I'll remember her, and I'll be ever so thankful that I am strong, healthy, ALIVE and in love with someone I think she'd adore. I love you, Maureen. I think I will always miss you, and what might have been.