Flowers from Scars

The marks are invisible, but I am different since my mother died.

I may never stop writing about her final months and that final sunny afternoon when her heart stopped. Part of my life stopped, too, the day my mother died. Some joy vanished for good. Some smiles and laughs belonged to her alone. It’s that way, I’ve learned. Some experiences are only meant to be lived with a particular person; they take those moments and gifts when they leave. It is a painful uprooting.

I don’t feel shattered anymore, though sometimes, tears still surprise me when some memory pops into my head during a meal or somewhere else, like that evening about a month and a half ago when I was staring at the Downtown Chicago lights from a beach on the Indiana side of Lake Michigan. I had to walk away from my friends. It was the beach she most often took us to when she got home from work. We’d pile into the station wagon with friends, and off we’d go in our swimming trunks, towels hanging from our shoulders.

I am grateful for those moments and now for the loss, too.

Surprising?

Maybe, but I appreciate the way it changed me. Here’s a partial list of what I know is different.

I returned to Jesus after I had long strayed. That conversion had been years in the making, but that experience sealed it. The change made me look for ways to connect my faith to my concerns for social justice. And one day, I found From Here Media on social media. It is a lay Catholic media organization. Connecting with that work has been healing and life-giving, as it has connected me to other Catholics seeking to live by the principles of Catholic Social Teaching. I now have friends scattered across the country with the same vision.

I appreciate cooking even more than I used to. That became apparent during the height of the pandemic in 2020. Many of us took to cooking, baking, showing off, and sharing our creations. Finding flour, some kitchen utensils, and small appliances during that spring was difficult. I’m sure many of them are just stored away. (Now is the time to look for a gently used Kitchen-Aid mixer.) One day during the summer, I was baking pound cake when I realized one of my parents’ greatest lessons was feeding and caring for our neighbors. This was especially true for an older neighbor who could no longer cook for herself. I’ve given away many pound cakes since then.

I also learned how to make Neapolitan-style (or pretty close to it) pizzas that summer. I had always wanted to make pizza from scratch, so I taught myself. Now, making pizza is an excuse to have friends over to eat, crack jokes, and share some drinks—making memories and deepening our friendship. Is there a better reason to cook?

I’ve also learned to appreciate chores and small jobs around the house, especially with my mom’s soundtrack. On Friday nights when we were little, we would help my mother clean the living room, kitchen, and bathroom late into the night before driving to the mill to pick my father up at 11:00 pm when he clocked out. One song, among many, came to mind last year while I was washing dishes: Eres Tú, by the Spanish group Mocedades, or You are, in English. It’s a classic ‘70s song. After a blare of trumpets, violins come in, and the lyrics follow, “Like a promise, you are, like a summer morning. Like a smile, you are like fresh rain on my hands.”

Who was my mother thinking about when she hummed those lyrics? My father? Us, her three children? Her younger siblings, the ones she had to raise? I don’t know for sure, but those words are part of my life’s soundtrack now, and I play the song when I’m doing laundry, driving, or just because I want to remember those Friday nights from long ago.

My heart was plowed open by death, but flowers have sprouted from most of those scars. Other wounds are still closing, though now I know to heal them with faith, friendship, food, creativity, and lots of her music. Thankfully, that’s a gift she could leave behind.