Dear Mom

In honor of Mother's Day, I am sharing a letter I wrote to my mom for Mother's Day four years ago. Happy Mother's Day to all of you who have the hardest job on the planet.


Dear Mom,

This weekend marks the 20th year that I have endured a motherless Mother's Day. Twenty years is a long time --more than half my life--and a lot has changed since I last saw you and you assured me that everything was going to be all right. I think there are some things you should hear from me.

First of all, I want to say you picked a really shitty time to leave me. Granted, you didn't have a lot of say in the matter, and I know it's not how you expected things to turn out either. But the time you left this earth was shitty because I was in the midst of what was perhaps my most imperfect state. Sixteen, and had it all figured out. Sixteen, and full hormones and stupidity and false confidence. Sixteen, and angry that you had the audacity to criticize my foolish ways. Sixteen, and unable to see that I was turning out to be you.

But I have turned out to be you, in the strangest and most unexpected way, and I think you would either be immensely proud or completely annoyed. I have your wicked and sometimes bizarre sense of humor. I have your thick, stubborn head (unfortunately topped with Dad's fine, lifeless hair). I have your big brain filled with big ideas. I am sometimes misunderstood just as you often were. Like you, I believe in all things just and right, and like you I am painfully aware that life rarely offers hearty helpings of either.

I know there are a lot of things about my life that would make you proud. I've made a life for myself that is filled with laughter and selectively chosen loyal friends. I have been called and have risen to a life's work that is more meaningful than almost any other I can imagine, and have made an immense difference in my corner of the world. I am responsible in ways you would have never thought possible. Really and truly, I am.

And one of my proudest accomplishments, one that I know would warm that sometimes steely heart of yours, is that your baby--my baby sister--has become one of my most trusted, cherished and sacred friends in life. The same baby sister I loved the first day she was born, and by the second day figured out she shamelessly stole my spotlight. The same baby sister who I resented for choosing the same cereal as me every morning, and the same baby sister who was the inspiration for the limited-time, one-act melodrama, "Stop Playing With My Makeup You Fucking Little Brat!" The same baby sister I couldn't comfortably relate to until I could safely assume she'd had her first beer. The same baby sister I look at now and think, "Damn, how did she get here from there?"

You have every right to look me in the eye and confidently state, "I told you so."

Even if your sudden departure wasn't expected, it turns out the cosmos were right. Right in the wrong sort of way, right in the way that makes you say, "What the fuck?" and then strap on your cajones and confidently trudge forward to unknowing greener pastures. Right in that, I was afforded the lesson early on that I have the capacity to rise above even the most miserable of circumstances triumphantly. I've carried that lesson with me everywhere, and have used it over, and over, and over again.

The truth is, Mom, you may have left the party too early, but before leaving you left many gifts behind. Trust that each gift has been accepted and used in the spirit with which it was intended. And know that even though your stay at the party was too short, it was really great that you were able to show up at all.

Love,

Jen