Thirteen Years and Thirteen More

I was 13 years old when my mom died. That was 13 years ago today.

Something I’ve struggled with in the wake of my mom’s death is memory. I’ve been hard on myself because I have a difficult time recalling specific memories of my time with her. Like, by 13 years old, I should have had specific moments that I can recall for the sake of my own comfort or a story to tell someone unlucky enough to not know her. And sure, trauma messes with memory the way a powerful magnet can scramble a hard drive, but that sentiment hasn’t ever given me the comfort for which it is intended.

Anyway, I’ve thought a lot about this milestone — living as many years with her as I have without her. And before you think, “She’s always with you, Zac,” let me just say: I know. On the whole, I’m lucky. My family is incredibly close. I have a father and five older siblings who have, in their own ways, filled that gap for me as much as possible, and that’s without including the many aunts and uncles and cousins who’ve done the same along the way. Hawaiian family ideals and such. My life since September 6, 2008 has, relatively, gone really well.

That said, what’s grown increasingly clear is that a mother’s love is irreplaceable. Even in my motherly figures, or hānai moms, it comes with the unintentionally stinging reminder that I am without mine. And as this marker passes — the one that allows me to say I’ve lived longer as The Guy With The Dead Mom than I have otherwise — I can’t help but reflect on the reality of it all.

Perhaps the most difficult part of losing a mom, especially one who was good at being Mom to my siblings and me as well as so many others, is in the present. Growing up, I felt the absence in every major moment. Whether it’s the firsts (driving, school dance, girlfriend, bylines, legal drink, etc.) or the accomplishments (high school and college graduation, moving into my own place, etc.), I can’t help but imagine her reactions. The big hug, the potential tears, the “good job” or “I’m so proud of you” I know would eventually come. Those tangible Mom Moments, those have been the biggest gap, and I expected as much. I’ve seen my siblings openly go through the same thing.

The private moments, though, those are the gut punches. I’ve been lucky enough to afford therapy, which I’ve gone to since February 2018 (ironically, my first appointment came on Valentine’s Day — self-love and whatnot). Humorously, in that introductory session, I mentioned my mom’s death, quickly followed with, “But I’m OK with it,” and moved on. My therapist — bless them — held onto it until I was ready to talk about it, and in one of my sessions a couple years back, I talked about this lingering cloud of grief, one I thought I’d grow out of as I came more and more to grips with the trauma of her death. For one, I was well-adjusted and managed to make it this far into my life without any sort of real lashing out or whatever is usually tied with such a tragedy. But it followed me as I continued to grow.

For a long time, I genuinely allowed my thoughts on grief to circle back to a quote from One Tree Hill (still an excellent show), the quote being:

“Grief is like the ocean: it’s deep and dark and bigger than all of us. And pain is like a thief in the night. Quiet. Persistent. Unfair. Diminished by time and faith and love.”

And yes, the pain fades, for the most part, save for a few days per year. But grief, as time goes on, is less an ocean but more a swimming pool you can’t leave. You can find the edges, and sometimes you can stand, but the deep end is always there, and getting used to the loss just means just being able to tread water a little better. I guess what I’m saying is that I learned that when people say a loved one never leaves you, they mean the grief evolves with you, too. What I’m saying is I learned there are two corpses: the one that goes into the ground and the other that you carry — either behind you or on your shoulders, depending on the day. And, to reference another famous story, I feel like my life to this point has given me a sort of kinship with Death. For a while, it was an unhealthy one, but thanks to loved ones, a good therapist and faith, too, it’s managed a lot better now. It’s more like an old friend, one I don’t really want to talk to or catch up with but one with whom I’ve gone through every up and down.

I’m not sure why I felt the need to write about this moment. I’ve always felt a little bit of a responsibility because of it. Like, because I’ve been blessed with the life I’ve had so far in spite of my mom’s death and with a decent-enough skill of writing, I should put this grieving to words in hopes it might help someone else. Hanif Abdurraqib, a poet, essayist and critic, often refers to others who’ve lost their mom as “siblings in a very specific grief,” and that really hits me the way I hope these words hit someone in a similar spot. If anything, it’s always good to put words down on proverbial paper (journaling — also a good habit!).

Of late, and with the help of my very loving and gracious partner, I am finally starting to feel comfortable with reclaiming my mother, in a way. While I still tend to go dark on social media on Mother’s Day or her birthday, part of me yearns to honor her in specific ways. This doesn’t come without its own hardships. I’m not in possession of as many pictures or videos with me and my mom as my siblings, so it’s hard not to feel a little left out. But where I used to want to hide the pain or the sorrow, I now am feeling a rumbling hunger for stories, for pictures, for knowledge of the way my mom was when she lived, and by all accounts, she lived and loved fiercely. One of my favorite stories is that she and her best friend (shoutout to Aunty Phyllis) ditched a school field trip to instead go watch the latest Robert Redford movie — oh how much fun we’d have today swooning over that god of a man today!

I can’t help but to feel cheated sometimes. I’d love to just hang out with my mom today, talk to her about my travels and stories, ask her about things as serious as love and the future or as trivial as a good drink and the best hangover cures. I’d love to share a glass of Pinot Grigio, to knock back too many amaretto slammers or cosmopolitans, to wrap her up in a big, loving hug. To tell her I love her. By all accounts, she was a fucking awesome woman, and to have her for 13 years in my life, I know I’m lucky.

Despite my aforementioned spotty memory of her, there’s three recollections I have always held. In one: I remember pretending to sleep in the backseat of our car on the way back home from a party or dinner, and seeing her drunkenly dance to whatever song was playing, waving her hands all around. The second: I remember her spilling coffee in the car and accidentally bumping the car ahead of us, followed by an, “Oh, shit!” The man’s car luckily had a spare tire on the back that took the brunt of the hit, and when she got back into the car, she instructed us to not tell our dad about it. The third: when we were listening to “Number One” by John Legend, and, in hopes of fast-forwarding past Kanye West’s corny bars about his penis, she skipped ahead right to the exact line, prompting a hearty laugh from everyone in the car.

For as much as I wish I remembered certain things better — her voice, her laugh, her embrace — I find the humor in these silly, messy memories. I expect more to pop up over the years, either buried deep in my brain or to be told to me from her many friends and siblings. There are so many stories about her — Aunty Carmen, Carmen, Mom.

This year, I become older without her than with her, and while the gravity of her death always keeps me in its orbit, I welcome it with a warm embrace, a heart heavy but grounded in the love she shared, the life she passed onto all of my siblings in the time she did have with us all.

I also wrote this poem inspired by the same reasons I wrote this post, so here is that:

Missing Piece In The Room

Two corpses:
one you put in the ground
and the other you carry with you.

Grief often decides when it is done with you.
And grief is so often the mourning of a loved one lost
coupled with the wish for your own,
that the act of living without their presence is
too heavy a weight on your chest.
The missing piece in every room,
often hidden in a shadow waiting for the wrong moment
to gather your attention once again.

And maybe this is a third corpse —
the dead dream of imagining life
in which you do not miss the idea of a person in it.

Their embrace after a long time gone, the smile in their voice when you have good news.

It’s a “loss that haunts you,”
the one where you’d done nothing wrong
and yet it seems like something horribly divine
has pushed mountains and winds against your favor.

Or the sucker punch tug in your gut when grief wraps
its arms around your throat sending you down,
unconscious before you hit the floor.

Or you see it coming, inevitable and unrelenting,
grief running the score on you as who you once were gets swept
into its undertow and out into the false bliss of nothingness.

And my daily battle is to yank myself back with the living;
it often leaves me spent, only the energy to coast
along the momentum of the wave of not dying,
the avalanche of living, waiting for my body to regain its grip.

What is grief if not nostalgia? A yearning for what was,
tinged with memories and a still-open wound?
Or maybe nostalgia is more sentimental grief.
Like it is itself a process of letting go of a period no longer in hand.

In each house, I feel a missing piece.
Sometimes it’s a corner without light or
a wobbly chair or a spot the air conditioning leaves hot.
There’s an absence I sometimes forget to expect.
Each space, I get used to the absence, adjusting and acclimating
the area to make up for the finishing piece to the picture.

But what I’m learning is the spotlight
always returns there, demanding my attention.

It’s the squeaky wheel,
the leaky faucet,
the uneven patch of carpet,
the stain on the wall,
the chipped plate at the bottom of the stack,
the air bubble in the paint,
the cobwebs in the corner,
the pea underneath dozens of mattresses.

I accepted my incomplete nature a while ago,
but what they don’t tell you about grief is that it doesn’t fade,
it matures with you like a most loyal companion.

nobody tells you processing death just means accepting that forever gap.

One time, I drove across town past my elementary school and pulled up to the park they built when I was in 4th grade. Back then, I was a big fan of the rings over the monkey bars. I enjoyed swaying back and forth, pretending I was Spider-Man or Diddy Kong, avoiding the ground underneath me. But I was scared of the monkey bars and their static nature, the way they rubbed my palms into a burning mess of skin. I thought about this as I reached up and grabbed a middle bar with two hands, feet firmly on the ground, and I wondered about how much changes as we grow, how I still feel like I prefer swinging to static,

and I think about how something that hasn’t shrunk, but instead has grown is my understanding of the “forever.” I realize I will always miss my mother, her ghost now doubled in size.