The Loss of Mirrors

It's been nearly two weeks since my mom, Sally Newman, died. I've certainly written in these pages before about friends, family and loved ones who have passed on, and want to write something about my mother in these pages that is truly about her - the life she led, and the life that is now gone - but for now it will have to wait. There's still too much going on in my head and in my heart to write something cogent about her. For the best that I could muster, you can read her obituary.

I do, however, want to write about me. Specifically, about how Sally's death has impacted me. That may sound odd, or even self-centered. And it is. But, nearly all mourning is at least partly fueled by our own self-pity at losing someone we knew. It's the difference between, say, someone telling you that a random 76-year-old woman on the other side of the world that you've never known has died, and being told that your 76-year-old parent has perished. Our feelings tend to follow those closest to us, for better or worse.

And so, dear reader, the last two weeks have been a see-saw of emotions for yours truly. There have been periods of calm, tender reflection, tearful moments, and an overall pervasive sadness that has caused a general tiredness that is difficult to describe. When someone close to us dies, we feel the loss of their presence. Or, more acutely, we come to understand the reality that they are no longer living on this earth. One of mom's favorite public figures, JFK, once said the following:

"We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal."

It may sound odd, and it's something I didn't consciously think about until she was gone, but knowing that my mom was out there somewhere, knowing that her and I were breathing the same air, that we were seeing the same sky, that we were still existing for the same, brief time on this planet, was comforting. I feel this way about a few other people, but I think we tend to feel this a bit more profoundly when it comes to our parents. They gave us life, they (hopefully) gave us love, and they (again, hopefully) cared about us probably more than any other humans we're likely to encounter.

Something else that has brought a deep, profound sadness during the past fortnight is the realization that I have lost my mirrors. Allow me to explain. Several years ago, when film critic Roger Ebert had his own blog, he was writing about how he loved his wife, Chaz. One of the things he mentioned (and I may be paraphrasing a bit) is how he thought it important to share your life with someone so they could be a mirror to your own experiences. Well, when you're a kid, you typically share your life with your parents.

Our childhoods tend to be emblazoned in our minds. If we live the typical human lifespan of someone in a developed nation, then our childhoods are a comparatively short period of time. But, they are often called 'formative years' for a reason. They are supremely important to our development, to who we are, and often to who we become. There's no replacing those years we spend growing up.

Though my mom and dad divorced when I was 12, I still have many memories of the times - good and bad - we spent together as a family unit. After their divorce, I lived primarily with my mom, visiting with dad on various weekends. I remember, pre-divorce, nights spent in our wood-paneled living room on Draper St., watching television. I remember the day (some three years post-divorce) when dad came over to our house on John St., and he, mom and I sat together as he told us how my uncle Joe had died, and when and where the services would be.

I remember the night mom vented her anger and frustrations at me for getting poor grades in high school, and what needed to be done to correct them. And then, as we talked for several hours, the conversation morphed into an almost baring of our souls, about what was going on underneath the surface, of my confusion, depression and frustration as a teenager, of her stress of having to work, raise me, and try and have some kind of a life. She cried in front of me, talking about much she missed her late grandmother who, by that point, had been dead for over a decade.

All of the aforementioned memories, and many more too numerous to recount here, are solely mine now. My mirrors are gone. Those ephemeral moments, the often innocuous instances of daily life that were shared with my parents, that I so often took for granted, now only have me as their witness. In the grand scheme of things, is that conversation that mom, dad and I had in January of 1992, about my uncle Joe's death, really important? No, of course it isn't. But does it matter to me that, of the three people who were sitting there that day, two are now gone? Yes, yes it does.

I'm not sure if any of this really matters, or if I'm just needlessly torturing myself during the early stages of grief. It could be both. Regardless, I have been somewhat taken aback by the heaviness by which this has all hit me. It's not something I used to think about much, and it may be an issue particular to an only child (I have three half-siblings, but we weren't raised together).

While there are plenty of people still around who remember my dad, there were only two of us who knew him as a father and as a husband. Over the years, mom and I would sometimes talk about him, recounting what it was like living with him back in the day, the good and the bad. I didn't fully appreciate the importance of having someone else who I could talk with about those times. She was the only other person with that perspective, the only other person who shared those specific memories. Now, I don't have anyone to talk with about those experiences.

My mirrors are gone. All of the things we did together: the trips we took, the occasions spent around the kitchen table or watching TV together, the arguments and raised voices - all of it - I will do my best to remember for us.

And I just miss my parents.