Happy Birthday, Mama

 Happy birthday, Mama.

My mom, Melody, would’ve been 66 today. She should still be here. She isn’t, and I’m resentful toward the world for it. I feel a lot of anger lately. Angry that she isn’t here. Angry that such a loving person is gone when so many other terrible people walk the Earth. Angry that science and her doctors failed her when they said everything would be fine. Angry because I’m forced to keep moving, otherwise I’d be buried under the grief I carry. People sometimes pick up this energy, the intensity and tend to avoid me. But I could never explain myself why I’m feeling the way I do even if I was asked. 

Think I hit that patch of not feeling great is the realization that no one is around to call me "Bear" anymore...

There’s only so much suffering and pain because the love I hold is the size of my entire known world. That world is now gone and my love has nowhere to go, so I hold it still despite it getting hot with rage and sorrow, harming myself in the process. It hurts so much because I care so much. The saying is true after all. It’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all, as cliché as it is.

With pain, we can either use it as a tool or a weapon. We can allow the negative emotions to take over and we lash out our anger in a harmful way. That anger can hurt someone, push people we love to the side because we cannot cope with our sorrow. Take it on out on people that we don’t mean to step in the range of the crossfire. And we use it to dig ourselves deeper into grief because of the guilt we’d feel if we let that type of love go. I have no use for this weaponry. That’s not what my mom would want out of me. 

The love that was given to me by my mom was a permission slip to seek out all the curiosities and wonders of this world with a sense of levity and optimism. So I will seek to turn that love into a tool a useful cause. 

It was a couple years ago that she read one of my short stories for the first time. She heard I wrote something and really wanted to see it. So I showed her “Thalia Mora: The Prowler in the Witch House” from my Death Throe Collective collection. She loved it so much. I thought she was playing it up, but she said, “You have to be a writer. I don’t know where you learned that, but you have to keep writing.” 

I’ll keep that words as close to me as I live because not everyone has a parent be so supportive about their work like she did. So I will. I will write for the rest of my life and dedicate my life to her and what she gave to me. It’s the greatest gift I can think of now that she’s gone: To make the world a little better than before you came into it. To tell a few stories, have a few laughs, and say goodbye with no regrets. 

It’s still painful to talk about sometimes, but I have to get my thoughts out before it eats me from the inside. I hope you, the beloved reader, can take some good from this. That you give your mom a big hug and tell her how much you appreciate her like I did plentifully before she was gone. 

I have no regrets either. I told her what I needed to say. She knew I loved her. She wasn’t scared at all and left with nothing but love in her heart. To me, there will be no one else like her. I feel she’s still with me sometimes even though I wrestle with my faith lately. What kind of God would do that to my mom, y’know? What a terrible thing to do. Quite the cunt thing to do to give a family hope just to rip it away in tragedy. 

If there is a God, I certainly hope they are pampering my mom wherever she is. She deserves it. It’s her birthday for fuck’s sake. Get her the coconut cake she loved so much, put on The Haunting of Hill House for the millionth time, and pass on the love me, my dad, siblings, and grandchildren all have for her. She. Deserves. It.  

I’ve said this in my initial post when my mom died, but I’ll post it again as it still rings true to me. The consolation prize to the Bereaved is that anytime someone asks you about someone you loved who are gone, you get to tell them all about how wonderful of a person they were. You get bragging rights for the rest of your life because you knew them and you loved them. That’s the deal made with grief.

Also this quote to lighten up this post: “I’m not a doctor, but I’m pretty sure that when you die, the cancer dies too. That's not a loss, that’s a draw.” -Norm MacDonald. 

I love you, Mama. I’ll do something special with the family, okay? We miss you terribly, and we love you with all of our hearts.

Happy birthday, Mama.