A Different Mothers' Day

I don’t only write about medicine. If you’re only here to read about vaccines, public health, or strange diseases, you can skip this one. -pal

Every couple of years my mom would come home and set a package wrapped in butcher paper down on the kitchen counter. She had called the store ahead of time to order veal shanks. She would sear them, and then sautee chopped aromatics, and deglaze the pan with white wine. The smell of the wine cooking off, marrying the flavors of the seared veal, garlic, and vegetables was just overwhelmingly warm. You could taste it. Then she re-introduced the veal, topped it off with I-don’t-know-what, covered it, and put it in the oven for a few hours.

Every time she made osso buco she would say, “Well, I’m never doing that again!” She usually served it with orzo, and the meat would just fall off the bone. She probably only made it a half dozen times, and despite her complaints, it made her happy. She would take the shank bone, poke out the marrow, and spread it onto a piece of challah (despite the odd cultural melange). My mom was someone who literally sucked the marrow out of life. She was full of joy and optimism.

We lost mom last fall. She lived a very long, beautiful life. My mom’s brother Joseph sent me a birthday card—my birthday and Mothers’ Day are always close together. I wrote him back with a family update which he thanked me for, and he wrote, “You didn’t say how you feel on your first Mothers’ Day without your mother.”

No, I didn’t. I’m not sure how I feel. I haven’t experienced much loss in my life—I’ve been very fortunate. But we are all destined to lose our parents. Knowing that doesn’t make it any easier.

My sisters remind me of my mom in so many ways—they look like her, they’re brilliant, they’re creative. I’m very lucky to have them. My eldest daughter looks like that side of the family as well. There are shadows and reflections of my mom all through my life. And I guess that’s part of how you deal with a loss like this.

But unlike what I’ve heard others say about a lost loved one, I don’t feel like she’s all around me. I feel like she’s—gone. My sisters and my daughter are their own people, and beautiful for it. My mom’s smile, voice, and laugh are a gauzy film just outside my vision, that thing you think you see but if you try to focus on it, it slips away.

A few years ago I was going through a list of my patients. As I read the names, I could picture them, hear them, remember their lives, their medical problems. Many of them were long gone—I take care of a lot of old people and inevitably, I lose them. It’s part of the job. Sometimes I think back, remembering their lives, and I smile quietly.

My mom is on someone’s list now. I like to think that when they read her name, they stop and smile. Because if you knew her, you had no choice but to smile. So I guess she is still around. Sort it. But I miss her terribly.