On any given day, I habitually pick up my phone to an offering of “on this day” social media memories. Collections of experiences I once carefully designed to share specific stories in the throes of parenthood. These narratives are now immortalized and effortlessly curated by apps and cloud-based storage drives to ensure that I stay engaged in real time, which is not to be confused with staying “present.” Like most users of social media, I take a quick flip through the reels, share the funny ones, pause at the sad ones, and move on to whatever lures me in next. I’ve been savoring these peeks back over the years parenting my two as I ready myself to send them both into the next chapter. I know that I am about to earn the label of “Empty Nester,” finally reaching that ominous milestone that seemed impossibly far away. It just sounds so raw. So negative. So……empty.

Does it HAVE to be? How do I FEEL? Am I READY? What am I going to DO? My own thoughts and the casual but increasingly frequent inquiries of others supply the soundtrack to the daily visuals I’m offered online reminding me of just how much time has passed. Did my mother feel this loss the same way that I am now without the constant digital reminders of me in my smocked dresses, playing with my toys, reaching this or that milestone? I wish I could have that conversation with her now to compare.

I’ve often referred to myself as an Eeyore by nature, allowing the gloom to sneak in by looking back a little too much or worrying about the what ifs a little too frequently. When the clouds roll in, I try to stay focused and remind myself that raising my children IS  NOT MY WHOLE STORY. I am so much more than a mom, but I’ve worn the nametag so prominently over the past twenty years that I feel like I need some refresher courses in my other roles to keep me current. I made choices along my parenting journey that led me to this exact point. I chose to stop travelling in my sales career and to work from home. I chose to take a break from working all together. I chose to be the class parent, camp director, team liaison, party planner, board member. Why I felt so strongly that I needed to fill these roles is a deep dive for another day. But right now, I struggle with the thought that somehow no longer filling these roles centered around my children and their activities, I am alone. Irrelevant. No longer needed. The struggle is that while I know this not to be true and I have control over my actions, I can’t just stop FEELING it when I anticipate what’s next for me. 

Yesterday, the teens were out of the house working, shopping, playing, seeing friends. They were doing all the things one does before heading out to their freshman and sophomore years of college in one short week. Feeling antsy and alone in my space even though they haven’t left yet is my new normal these days, so I decided to be productive and get out of the house too. After some basic errands and dropping off my car for service, I popped over to Chik Fil A to have lunch. Spicy chicken sandwich in one hand, I reached for my phone with the other ready to scroll as usual and find out what happened “on this day” in my past when I just stopped. I put the phone down. Right there, in that fast food restaurant, I made the choice to just be with myself. When I picked my head up, I saw my past not on a screen but right there in my present.

I took a breath and looked around at the reels playing out around me. I was overcome with emotion when I sat with and saw myself on this day. I was the mom with her friends and all the little boys in baseball caps swatting each other and stealing fries. I was the mom rattling off a to do list to the disinterested teenage boy towering over her, clearly annoyed as he walked as fast as he could to the exit. I was the mom holding up her baby girl sharing such an infectious laugh I couldn’t help but smile. I was the mom who stared out the window glassy eyed surrounded by chaos and just being still. I was the mom who was arguably not having her best day as she dug through her bag nearly in tears looking for the answer to an unknown problem. At that moment, I was present. Relevant. SEEN. 

The hyper awareness continued for me as I walked back to the car dealer and spotted the young couple with the stroller, likely negotiating their way into the minivan culture. When I pulled into my neighborhood and crept by the protective mom as she gave her audible warning of “CAR!” as scooters scrambled in a blur to the sidewalk. When I took the dog out and chatted briefly with the three young moms on the driveway who were headed out for their own quick version of “me time”: a dog walk/happy hour before dinner and bedtime routines reeled them back inside. When, for a delicious moment later that night, all four of us were spontaneously on the couch watching Friday Night Lights in the dark, snuggled under blanketswith clear eyes and full hearts until other plans enticed theoldest away for the night.

On this day, I wasn’t just scrolling back through still pictures, I FELT the memories and remembered the choices, good or bad, that brought me to this point. On this day, I wasn’t Eeyore. I was those mommas, and they will one day be me. No matter where we all are in the parenting journey, there will always be memories, pictures, reels and feels, unknowns and what ifs. Although the transition to parenting young adults is daunting, I will do my best to remind myself that I am a mom with an empty nest, but I was and I am Leigh first. On this day and every day, that is okay.

You Don’t Know Jack

Jack really didn’t know ME all too well until Momma was gone. We had always grown up with dogs, but Jack Daniel was one of Momma’s later acquisitions pursued in an attempt to fill a hole in her heart caused by the passing of yet another dog. I’ve mentioned before that Momma wasn’t classically maternal in the sense that she busied herself with care giving- she just needed to have living creatures around her to see and love. She made no real attempts to train her dogs. They ruled the roost. She needed them but she didn’t put much effort into them.

As a result of her extreme desire to stay inside and avoid people, Jack never really got socialized. He was as sweet as could be in his own little world and became attached to Daddy. Funny that Momma pushed for the dog against Daddy’s wishes but she won and that was foreshadowing for a relationship that Daddy probably didn’t realize he would ultimately need.

Jack was eventually the only dog left when Momma became advanced in her illnesses and I am certain he picked up on the changes and tensions at home over the years. I used to show up to check on things in either South Boston or Fredericksburg and he would bark and growl defiantly at me. He became my target – my frustrations with my mother (cultivated over many years of exasperation on my part because I didn’t understand her nor she me) translated into exasperation for not taking what I believed to be proper care of her animals making me seethe. I once looked Jack In the eye and told him that I hated him. After a stunned silence he answered with a ferocious growl and then turned and walked off giving me a metaphorical finger – his stubby tail ramrod straight. I was happy that I pissed him off.

I’m now certain that some of Momma’s avoidance of HER self care (which translated into care of those around her) came from early undiagnosed Parkinson’s, but a lot of her denial and avoidance was just her personality. She never took care of herself. She did not work, drive, exercise, attempt to make friends, initiate family gatherings. Walk her dogs. Teach them not to pee in the house. It may sound like I’m criticizing her. I’m not. I’ve got a list of my own issues and struggles a mile long and I’m long past that level of frustration. I’m NOT her. I am of her and I loved her. But I have freed myself of the anger I used to harbor over her perceived deficiencies. Jack was an easy target of my displacement.

Eventually Jack helped me see more clearly. True, Momma made no attempt to socialize him and Daddy sure as hell couldn’t do it because he was managing a town and caring for my mother. It wasn’t Jack’s fault. He was a product of his early environment just like Momma. She was forced to socialize and take part in societal activities that she could have cared less about. It caused her to retreat inside herself. So, Jack wasn’t expected to socialize because that would require Momma to.

When Momma died, Jack became Daddy’s most trusted companion. He was there with unconditional love for a man who so desperately needed and deserved it. Care giving wore him down, but somehow that codependency role formed with Momma transferred to Jack and they were inseparable in their grief.

Then Daddy moved up here and the Jack I thought I knew became so much more than an untrained dog.

I didn’t know Jack. I found out that he was a mender of broken hearts. He was a friend. He was a connection. He was a savior. He was good company. He was a playmate. He was innocent. He was a bridge between my mother and father. He was hope. He was essential. He was a promise.

Jack died in June. He was almost 14. He just wanted to be the Jack he was born to be. Sounds like someone else I knew. Happy Birthday Momma. Say hey to Jack for me.

As I enter the season of the anniversary of Momma’s death, I keep going back in time to the first few weeks after she died. My life was put on hold on the evening of November 1 when I received the call that Momma had fallen, and I don’t fully remember being engaged in my surroundings or present in my daily life until weeks later.  I did what I needed to do, all of the communicating and navigating that needs to occur to stay strong for family and to lay someone to rest. When I revisit those moments in my mind, I know that I was fueled often by raw emotion, sometimes by blinding anger, and always by adrenaline. Nothing is as clear now as I would like it to be.

What I do remember is the overwhelming outpouring of support and sympathy. All of the exchanges of dinners, calls, notes and favors. I vividly remember the looks in so many familiar eyes as I stood in my doorway glassy -eyed and bone tired, graciously receiving the warm dishes filled with dinner and leftovers for days. The looks that said to me, “I don’t know what to say.” “I’m terrified of this happening to me.” There I stood in my veil of uninvited grief receiving this literal and mental feast of sympathy. The meals and favors came for days, gifts for which I am forever grateful. The intensity of the grief and sympathy were the focal point of my days. Momma’s death was expected in the sense that she had been suffering from Parkinson’s dementia, but unexpected in that the fall took her life. I had spent the greater part of two years prior to her death worrying about her decline, about Daddy’s stamina as a caregiver, about my own guilt as a daughter with a less than perfect relationship. I had shared my struggles with a precious few. Then, after Momma’s passing, I found myself standing as the guest of honor at a feast of guilt and grief, robotically receiving my guests with simultaneous gratitude and awkwardness.

Then at some point, the abundance of attention stops; it all goes away for a while. It quiets down. Time passes. There are those you hold close that remember the little moments and big dates and everything in between, always standing by. But, there are days that the feast becomes famine. Everything falls back in place and the mundane tasks of the day to day take over. This is the grace of the grieving process, I estimate, but then, when you least expect it, that break in the drought of remembrance sends rain down upon you with such blinding force and intensity that you are so full of longing that you cannot catch a breath.

When I cleaned out the house with Daddy, I found a piece of Momma that takes my breath away. This envelope served as Momma’s record of her contractions as she awaited me in November of 1971. I did not know her as a young first time mother, waiting for her baby and so diligently recording the signs of arrival. I wish I could know that young nervous woman. I SEE her now. This is a gift to me in my grief that allows me to feast on the memory of my mother as a person separate from me, from Daddy, from my sister. I want seconds, thirds; I’m insatiable in my desire to know her with fresh eyes. I can relate to her as a young woman, as a first time mother. But we never discussed it. I will never forget the circumstances of my babies’ entry into this world. They will, but I won’t and I will tell them repeatedly now how I feel for them and how I felt when I was expecting them. What I have uncovered in my longing for Momma is a piece of her, concrete proof of our existence as mother and daughter in a complete state of beginning.

On November 7^th, the date of my birth and date of Momma’s admittance to hospice last year, I will think of nothing but this young, pretty, anxious, and more than slightly quirky Air Force wife who was preparing to give me life. The young, handsome, loving, football obsessed man who was hoping that I wouldn’t truly arrive until after the Alabama LSU game. The woman who was my mother, who I have grown so much closer to in death.

Not all feasts leave you feeling satisfied, some leave you sick. This feast of grief has me so, so very full.

It’s creeping up on the anniversary of Momma’s death. Fall has always been my favorite season. New crayons, school buses, football, fires, soup on the stove. It’s my birthday season, my anniversary season, and the birth of my first child season. It’s also now forever known as the season in which I lost my mom. An anticipated yet unexpected loss occurred during my most treasured time. I’m doing my best to embrace the beginning of autumn by bracing myself for the onslaught of emotion that is coming my way. Sadly, grief isn’t mine alone to navigate.

On Monday, I opened the door to one of my truest friends. She is grieving the sudden loss of her beloved father. The day he died, August 27th, would have been my parents’ 52nd wedding anniversary.  That Monday, I was pushing back at grief all day, knowing that Daddy was visiting Momma’s graveside.  Then, around 8:30pm, I received a call with news that my friend’s father had unexpectedly died. I was shocked and heartbroken. Angry that death had touched someone else that I loved, that she now knew this specific and raw truth.

On October 8th, on her father’s birthday, she gifted me and two other amazing women that share the same love for her a bracelet and letter of thanks for supporting her through her grief journey. The bracelet came with a card that interpreted the design: “The Path of Life captures the essence of life’s odyssey and, with its knotted design, reminds us that we are all connected.”

I feel so strongly about this sentiment. Her heart has broken wide open and she is in so much pain. She and I are connected in so many ways: motherhood, friendship, values; now the death of a parent. I’m overwhelmed with love for her, our group of friends, her mother, my father, my mother.

Looking at the bracelet and the knotted design, I see so much symbolism. Knotted is a perfect word to describe not only connections, but complicated connections. I want to remain knotted in this friendship I have for eternity. Grateful does not even begin to describe my feelings for this beautiful soul, the gift giver bearing so much loss and love simultaneously. As friends, we can be knotted, secure, and safe.

But, in truth we sometimes try so hard to untie a knot that we completely give up. Sometimes we ignore it and find a way to get around it. Sometimes we cut at it furiously until we ruin what we were trying to fix in the first place. Sometimes we tie knots to cause a problem. And just maybe, we furiously tie a knot because we don’t want to let go. This has me thinking about Momma and our continually changing relationship. I have been overly emotional these days about Daniel starting high school. For me, 9th grade was the year that my mother and I became the most distant. I know most would say that this is true of all teenagers, but it didn’t have to be and it isn’t always true. It just isn’t. She was who she was.

Momma didn’t have a close group of women to lean on for support at any time in her life that I was alive to witness. She just didn’t and she was happy, I suppose. She was not comfortable in close groups of women, that I did observe. I didn’t think about that as much growing up, but it absolutely affects my perception of my relationship now. She’s not here to tell her story and I won’t interpret it in depth for her for fear of failing her, but I never saw her lean on other women the way my friends and I lean on each other. We lift each other up. We support without being asked. We are knotted by a love and connection that does not need to be displayed on Facebook to be proven. We do not need to be thanked for mothering each other’s children, for listening, for picking up slack. But we do give thanks. Always. As in a knot, I believe that we are made stronger when we layer threads and pull tighter to those we trust.

We ARE all connected on the path of life at some point. I’m so grateful for the strong women in my path.

June 11^th.  It happens to be seven months since my mother passed away.  I never was one to believe much in symbols or signs, but over the months since Momma’s passing I have started to see a connection between the numbers 7 and 11 and a connection to my mother. I never gave it much thought while she was living, but she and I shared a symbolic birthday pattern; she was born on 7/11 and I was born on 11/7. She departed this life on 11/11. She died in room 11 on her hospital floor. I can’t shake the significance. Almost daily, I will glance at the clock at 7:11. It brings me peace for a fraction of a second and I quickly whisper “Momma” with a wink and a smile.

On November 7^th, my 46^th birthday, we admitted Momma to in- hospital hospice. I spent the entirety of the day sitting by Momma’s bedside, often climbing right in with her to stroke her hair. I offered her lavender lotion scented leg rubs, tastes of thickened Coca Cola on moistened swabs, and gentle words of comfort as long as I could hold the tears back. I couldn’t help but think that 46 years ago, she was likely cradling me in her arms in a starched hospital gown, exhausted and offering me gentle words of comfort while wondering what lay ahead. I’m certain and grateful she wouldn’t have predicted that her final years spent with her baby would be spent in confusion, paranoia, and forgetfulness.

Momma’s neuropsychologist gave me the best analogy for Parkinson’s dementia in comparison to Alzheimer’s. She said that the mind is like a file cabinet. In PD, the files have been sorted through, misfiled, or jumbled. You can retrieve information but it often comes out incorrectly or things are imagined based on the confusion of information that has been filed. In an Alzheimer’s patient, those files have been removed and tossed away, never to be retrieved. Both circumstances leave an individual distressed, and loved ones in a state of helplessness. I’m grateful that Momma recognized me until the end. I often appeared to her in the end as “Little Leigh,” I’m guessing about 7 or 8 years old. She’d listen to what Little Leigh was saying. I’d like to think this is her way of reconciling any issues she had feeling like I was “putting her away” or conspiring against her. As grown up Leigh, my father and I shared the position of enemy number one when it came to the memory care decision. I believe the image of Little Leigh was comforting, taking her back to a place where she was confident and happy, and where I was dependent upon her, not the other way around.

Before Momma’s move to hospice on my birthday, I had been with her continuously for 4 days and nights, twilight sleeping next to her hospital bed on a springy miniature cot with my sister.  We were literally and figuratively clinging to each other for support, trying to come to our own separate peace with what was happening. I’m not sure I can aptly describe the emotional turmoil that comes along with making the decision to move Momma to hospice. And to make that decision on a day that I was receiving joyful birthday wishes? Heartbreaking. I was away from my family, emotionally bruised, and sleep deprived. Having traveled the winding road of uncertainty for so long, it was impossible to believe that this was taking place.

Sometime in the afternoon of Tuesday November 7^th, I tuned in to the soft lullabies that were being played intermittently over the intercom at the hospital. One of Momma’s care nurses disclosed in passing that the lullabies were signs of babies being born. Babies. BABIES! BABIES!!!! On my own birthday, the day of the “official” beginning of Momma’s dying process, I was flooded with an intense, almost manic joyful feeling of connection to these newly announced babies that I will likely never know. I counted seven babies that day, and did not hear the lullaby again until the day Momma died on the 11^th.

November 7, 2017. The hospital was filled with life. Life struggling, life healing, life renewing, life beginning, life ending. Life that had been loved, and life that WILL be loved. I’ve always been obsessed with the Henry David Thoreau quote “Every Child Begins the World Again.” That night, I just actually understood it.

Today, June 11^th, is my niece Abby’s 11^th birthday. She had a special bond with my mother, two fierce yet fragile souls that cared deeply for one another. They will forever be connected through their shared 11’s. Begin the world again, Abigail Ainsleigh. Look for your signs.

“She got the call today
One out of the gray
And when the smoke cleared
It took her breath away
She said she didn’t believe
It could happen to me
I guess we’re all one phone call
From our knees
We’re gonna get there soon.”

Mat Kearny ~ Closer to Love

My relationship with my mother was a continual work in progress. I loved her with a fierce protectiveness, but she frustrated me to no end. Now that all of my memories of my mother are committed to the past, I wonder if my present time with her was really true?  I spent so much time focusing on my frustration with our differences that I guaranteed I’d be sitting here today in a place of longing for second chances.

Momma was somehow gifted with what I deemed to be a miraculous second chance in 2009. She suffered a medical crisis, a ruptured colon, which left her in septic shock in the ICU for months. She survived terrible things, multiple surgeries, infection.  I mistakenly believed that she would come out of her shell to take the world by storm, celebrating her second chance and losing her anxieties that caused so much pain. That was me looking through a very stylized selfish lens. I could not change my mother. What I could have and should have done is remove that clouded lens and picked up grace covered glasses.

When she picked up the phone nine years ago, the timer was set on my grieving process.

Call Number One

Monday April 20, 2009 11:55 AM

 I pulled up near the preschool about five minutes early. It was a gorgeous shiny day, the kind where you roll down the windows and play a happy to be alive kind of song that triggers good memories, probably Dave Matthews in my case. D never liked me to be too close to the front of the carpool line because he liked to sit on the benches and talk to his friends, so I circled the neighborhood and decided to call Momma before sliding into my place in the middle of the queued up minivans.

I always had a better phone relationship with my mother largely because this is how she handled her relationship with my grandmother. Everything in her life was handled long distance. This was partly by circumstance as geography assignments with the Air Force dictated her distance from home, but largely due to personality and choice. As an extreme introvert, she craved isolation and alone time, but she thrived on information. Enter the daily phone calls. Our phone conversations were safe enough; frequent but clipped reporting sessions, pleasantries and stories about the grandchildren exchanged then ending with a promise to update Daddy. Car phone conversations allowed just enough time and gave a guaranteed “Gotta Go!” moment. She never really asked me about anything, I just reported. So as I rolled my silver Dodge Grand Caravan back into carpool line on that cloudless seemingly perfect day in April 2009, I called Momma to talk at her about the mundane comings and goings of my week.

She picked up the phone on the second crackly ring. The sharp stillness on the line seemed to suck all of the air out of the stifling car. “Momma, are you there?” “Yes,” her voice agitated and trailing into a whimper. “Are you okay?” “NO! NO ! LEIGH I AM NOT!” OKAY. Two things my mother was NOT known for were expressing emotion and admitting a potential medical issue, so I knew I had to hang up and get Daddy home. Momma hung up on me first so I found myself fumbling for the phone number to the  Town Hall where Daddy worked, and thanking God for the first time in forever that they lived in a small town; his office was less than five minutes from the house.

After a polite but punctuated hello to the smooth rural Virgina accent that thanked me for calling, I was transferred and Daddy picked up. “Hey, EO!,” the familiar sound of my childhood nickname in Daddy’s soft, Southern accented, love filled voice making me panic like a child. “Daddy, you have to go home. Have you talked to Momma? Something is wrong with her! Please go!” He told me that she had been feeling off for the past two weeks, claiming some stomach pain but she had been self-medicating. She was always a late sleeper, so she was still predictably cradled in her down comforter with the dogs when he left the house for work. He assured me that he would go check and give me a call back as soon as he could confirm that she was okay. That was 11:55 am. She was in the hospital in septic shock by 12:15.

Call Number Two

Friday November 1, 2017 8:20 PM

By this point in time, the grief timer had been running aggressively in the background of my mind for years. Although Momma physically recovered from her hospitalization, she did not ever fully acknowledge the toll that Parkinson’s Disease was taking on her previously ravaged body. She denied the severity of all of her medical issues. We could no longer deny it in May of 2016 when Momma began seeing people who were not there, accusing her loved ones of painful things, and attempting to walk the house unassisted prompting fall after fall.  Daddy hung in there for another full year, committed to keeping her safe and loved until the stress began to overwhelm him. She entered memory care in April 2017.

What I have learned over the years is that Daddy has strength and determination beyond measure. I grew closer to my father in our shared grief and my heart aches for his loss every day. He once told me that when he was a young boy he wanted a catcher’s mitt more than he could possibly explain. No money or tolerance for that at his house, but his determination led him to try to craft one out of board and wire. Board and wire. I wish I could rewind and give that little dreamer his gift.  Daddy was born a feeler. It may have been dismissed by my mother as a weakness, but it is his legacy to me. He selflessly became Momma’s sole caregiver; her eyes, ears, hands, feet. Parkinson’s dementia wrapped itself around Momma like ivy on a vine, and wrapped itself around her caregiver, my Daddy, like that board and wire.

This is the picture that pops up on my phone screen when Daddy is calling. Today, this image of my wonderful protector, my first love, brings me joy. Over the past two years, however, this picture appearing without expecting it triggered everything in me from anger, to fear, to pain, to panic. On Friday night, November 1, 2017,  I knew before I picked it up. I knew it. “Hey Daddy?” ”Momma fell.”

By definition, a eulogy is a commendatory oration or writing honoring the life of the deceased.  As I prepared to stand and honor my beautiful mother at her funeral last November, I couldn’t help but think of her eulogy as a mini-biography, a snapshot of a story pulled from an unpublished and bound version of a life uniquely lived. I’ve had much time to reflect on Momma’s life with my father and sister over these grief-filled months: shared memories, laughs, and snippets of wisdom as we guided her through the final stages of her illness. I can’t count the times that I or others defined my mother as a “character.” That’s what she was, and she played so many parts.

So, if I were to browse the shelves of memory and recollection to stumble across my Momma’s title, what would catch my eye?

They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but I know that Myra Browne Lewis’s biography would catch my eye from the beginning. I imagine the title would jump out at me in bold block print like a red laser rivaling the shade of her perfectly-applied trademark lipstick. It would be displayed in the most ornamental way possible – a high fashion jacket beckoning like a coveted on-trend look that Momma used to put together so effortlessly. It would be so colorfully decorated that it would invite me to pick it up, hug it close, and feel its message, thumbing the corner pages of the book gingerly.  I would have to read it, and I would predict that it would be a fast and predictable dramatic read. I would be wrong.

Although her book would be too short in narrative, I would quickly find that it would neither be predictable nor simple at all. The bold cover that pulled me in would prove to be a descriptor less about a life of drama and more about a life of introverted complexity. Momma loved with her mind, not necessarily her hands. The gregarious outer cover was not insincere; it just was not her true comfort zone. Momma liked to keep her loved ones close and safe inside her protective circle. She shined in her care giving role when Kim and I were young, and she had a knack for nursing. How special it was for us to give that gift back to her in her final days.

I imagine the font chosen to reveal Momma’s story would vary from chapter to chapter, oscillating between Comic Sans when describing her quick mischievous wit to possibly Wing Dings when describing her more anxious moments. Her hospitable southern charm and knack for decorating captured perfectly via a gallant Calligraphy type set. Antiquing? Bookman Old Style.  Not so simple or straightforward, a new layer peeled with every page turned.  There would be varsity font, cheerful and block-lettered, for her beloved days in Alabama, summoning a crisp and fragrant scene of houndstooth, magnolia trees and worn penny loafers. Pages would be turned rapidly when reading about her years as a Kappa Kappa Gamma and getting pinned to her handsome Delta Tau Delta beau at the University. Who would be able to put the book down and go to bed without dreaming of pomp and circumstance?  ROLL TIDE ROLL!

Her story would be historically informative, containing well researched chapters derived from years of researching genealogy with her brother, containing special footnotes about love of family tradition and heirlooms. Then it would take solemn detours when reliving losses such as her beloved father’s unexpected death and the profound sadness she suffered losing her mother after spending time recovering from her own unexpected illness.

I would be taken on a geographical adventure throughout the United States, seeing life through the eyes of a dutiful military wife, telling tales of one- of- a-kind friendships. I could envision young adults in Mess Dress bonding over overpriced Pina Coladas in Officer’s Clubs near and far. I would try to put myself in the shoes of a young new mother living at home with her parents as her high school sweetheart flew missions over Vietnam with infrequent communication – something we cannot fathom today in this world of smart phones and social media.

I would feel maternal love when others described her interactions with her babies. Her girls; her EO and Gonk, her life’s greatest accomplishments.  I would empathize with a woman who suffered loss of quality of life due to Parkinson’s Disease. I would repeatedly ask why? I would and will continue to weep at the cruelness of the disease.

Perhaps when I put the book down I would wish I had skipped the sad parts. Or, I may decide to reread the story again and again like a cherished novel. Maybe I’d realize that some of the chapters that were the hardest to get through may become my most cherished memories and trusted resources. The chapters on my relationship with my mother will be a continual work in progress, with edits and messy red ink marks included.

Each of us chooses how in depth we read a story and how present and engaged we are when we pick it up in the first place. I guess I really don’t have to “read” Momma’s; I helped her live it. I was a part of it. In losing her, though, I now want to revisit her as an individual with fresh eyes and devour every page.

If Momma’s life were bound in the volumes of a book, she’d be more than just a pretty cover. I could pick her up whenever I needed her, and you can be damn sure she’d let me rest my bottle of Coca Cola on her with a smile.

I recently lost my mother due to an accident suffered in her memory care home, where she resided due to her Parkinson’s Disease related dementia. The beginning of her end was a fall and subsequent brain bleed which ultimately stole her speech, remaining cognitive abilities and movement. Myra Browne Lewis Daniel, was a complex introvert, raised by a line of namesake extroverts from the deep South. Momma was fiercely loyal to her heritage yet painfully protective of her independence. Her roots shaped her personality and her mothering instincts.

Momma was just so complicated. Her quirkiness and anxieties seemed to warrant protection, yet somehow she always seemed like the most indomitable presence in the room.Just Say Momma is my space to reflect on my relationship with my mother and the changes we endured during her slip into dementia. When I say “Momma,” I conjure up an image of an impenetrable force, a beautiful puzzle, a belly laugh, a fragile bird. So many past sentences I uttered beginning with “Momma” were uttered in frustration. Now, just saying “Momma” makes me long for another chance. When I was little, I’d hear “JUST SAY MOMMA!” in a frantic and urgent tone, instigated by a cough which sent Momma into a panic that my little sister or I was choking and in distress. I hear Momma in my own voice when I instinctually offer up “Just Say Momma!” in response to a cough at snack time from one of the three year olds in my charge at preschool.

I’m unequivocally not the only daughter that struggled with the most mother/daughter issues. I do not claim that honor. I simply aim to reflect upon my relationship with my mother and how it changed as she slipped into dementia. How my mother was just “the most”, the most frustrating, the most complex, the most fascinating, the most misunderstood, the most fragile. Now, I am able to look back on my loss. She was the most. She is a part of me. Each day I have a new memory, or goal, or just feeling. Each time I reflect, I Just Say Momma.