On mothers and grief

and a few thoughts on writing

Forgive these jumbled thoughts. On Friday, we buried my mother-in-law Annette, my husband Ken’s mom, who I loved deeply and who was a constant in my life for 25 years. Her funeral was so well attended it was standing room only, which is pretty impressive for an 83-year-old. All three of her sons spoke as did her husband, my father-in-law, Alan, who is 88 and crushed by grief. (I told my kids to pay attention to these men who expressed their love so beautifully and openly. Not all men—not all people—can do that.) Two of her eight grandchildren spoke as well, including my son Oliver who surprised us all by walking straight up to the podium and speaking from his heart about what his grandmother meant to him. I am tearing up right now thinking about it.

It was an excruciating week. Annette was sick for ten years, very sick for the last two and half and extremely sick for the last six months. In other words, we knew this was coming but that did not cushion the blow. When my friend’s father died last month—quickly and with no warning—I wondered, perversely, if that was easier than what we were doing, watching Annette linger and suffer. Her father woke up the day he died and didn't know he was dying. Was that easier? No—because none of it is easy. Even having a chance to say everything we wanted to say to Annette didn’t make it easy. There is no way to outrun grief. I should know this by now.

I lost my own mother when I was 27, too young to lose a mother (although to those who lost their mothers earlier, I’m sure it feels plenty old), but I think I was tougher then, more resilient. My life was on the upswing, gaining speed, momentum. I was in the acquiring part of my life. Now, at nearly 50, I feel like I’m in the losing part, or at least standing on the threshold. I worry I don’t have the strength to withstand this grief now. I am exhausted and weepy. I am also charged with holding my children’s grief this time. When I lost my mother, I was responsible only for myself.

A friend wrote to tell me this would be a big transition, and I know exactly what she means. The days of my children being small, the birthday parties and toys and trips to the zoo and playground—all of that is over. I knew that already but losing Annette, who was at all of those parties and the playground and the zoo and always gave my children the giant plastic toys they wanted most, made it hit home in a different way.

I wrote about my mother and her death here, here also here. More recently, I wrote about Annette, an essay Alan asked me to read at her funeral but one I was also able to share with her before she died. That was a tremendous gift.

I warned my husband that Mother’s Day will be hard for him this year, every year really. I can already feel the tsunami of marketing bearing down on us and each card and flower arrangement and TV commercial feels like a body blow. I’ve been living with mother loss for a long time, but my mother didn’t really care about Mother’s Day so it never felt as personal to me. But Annette fucking loved Mother’s Day—the cards, flowers, restaurant brunches—so this will be hard. Be gentle with your friends who have lost mothers.

hope they’re hanging out somewhere

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I want to leave you with a thought about writing. I started writing the essay about Annette back in 2018. I knew the story I wanted to tell but I didn’t know what the story was about, what it was really about as Meg Wolitzer said once. I also wasn’t sure how to write about Annette in a way that felt honest but also honored her, relationships with in-laws being the complicated things that they are. So I put it aside and moved on to other things.

Last fall, when I started to think about what I could write in advance of my book’s publication, I found a draft of that essay, which I was surprised to see was almost complete. Annette was very ill at the time and somehow the effects of time and illness and maybe the pandemic had softened me, made everything gentler and more pliable, and now I knew exactly what I wanted to say about Annette. This time, the story came out exactly the way I wanted it to.

If I had published it back in 2018, it wouldn’t have been as good and it also wouldn’t have meant as much to our family, to me and to Annette. I also wasn’t trying to promote a book back then. Of course, I didn’t know any of this when I stopped working on it.

All of which is to say that a story takes the time it takes and you can’t know everything before you know it. Setting aside a piece of writing, perhaps never to pick it up again, can be scary and demoralizing for a writer; you’ve spent time on something and now you need to move on because you can’t figure it out for whatever reason. We’ve all been there and sometimes that essay or story or novel never again sees the light of day. But sometimes it does and the intervening weeks or months (or years) will have helped you see something you couldn’t see before.

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DATE CHANGE: I will be speaking live with Matzah Book Soup, a Jewish Own Voices book club created by Lillianne Leight and Amanda Spivack on May 4 at 8PM ET. This is rescheduled from April 27. Visit Matzah Book Soup on Instagram for more information.

MLIY was a Washington Post staff pick!

Over at Conde Nast Traveler, Maggie Shipstead said you should bring MLIY on your vacation!