Life Span

I realized this morning that we are right on the cusp of my first Mother’s Day since Sarah died. Part of me thinks it will be a sad day but part of me is Zen about it. We never participated in the Mother’s Day Brunch industrial complex due to our family’s eating habits and Sarah’s wheelchair. Max would usually get me flowers and Sarah would make me a collage or card with the help of her tutor Emily. My mom always sent me a card too, which I thought was sweet, telling me what a good mother she thought I was. I sent her a card too of course.

My mother’s mother, my Grandma Gertie, lived to be 106 (we think). She never was open about her exact age but some historical details she let slip led us to calculate that as her probable age. When I was a kid growing up and I asked her how old she was, she would tell me she was 16. She died a couple of years after Sarah was born. My other grandparents died when I was in my teens.

I always expected that my mother would likely be a centenarian too like Grandma Gertie, but things did not turn out that way. You can’t make predictions about peoples’ life spans. My dad of course is still active and “in full possession” of himself at 90, despite having had rheumatic fever as a boy and some heart issues from that. I hope he lives at least another 10 years.

The same website that reminded me that Mother’s Day is upcoming told me that the hardest way of mothering is to be the mother of a dead child, or something like that. That is pretty depressing. It is difficult not knowing where Sarah is now and whether she’s happy, well cared-for, and what she does with her time. I realize that makes her sound like a dog who has been rehomed, and I know that she is dead, and not doing anything with her time. That reminds me of the old joke, “What would Elvis Presley be doing if he were alive today? Scratching on the lid of his coffin.”

When I started my writing I was at the stage where I wondered if I was even a mother anymore now that Sarah is gone, so I guess I am making progress with grief or resolving some of these internal issues. That’s a good thing, but also a scary thing. Every step away from Sarah is scary. What if I live to be 106? Will she just be a blip in my life? Will the 16 years, 5 months, and 28 days of her life stop mattering to me?