Zibby Mag

By Rochelle Weinstein

I never wanted to be a member of this club, the one expressly made for motherless daughters.

When the doctors told us of our mom’s pancreatic cancer diagnosis in 2010, we had little hope, the insidious disease an almost certain death sentence. Club status was looming on the horizon, though this was the kind that offered no benefits, no clause to opt-out.

Navigating this new terrain left me fearful, the cloak of uncertainty wrapping around my neck. There were moments of sheer terror and helplessness as my siblings and I watched our single mother navigate through pain and discomfort, knowing her time with us was coming to an end.

How does anyone take that step forward without the person who laid the groundwork? How would I cope? Who would I call upon in those hours of need, if not Mom?

Eighteen months. Five hundred forty-seven and a half days. That’s how long we had from the time of her diagnosis. That’s how long I had to prepare.

I remember vividly the fleeting glimmers of hope buoying me through the long days of chemo, endless scans, and procedures. But then came the shattering setbacks, the sobering news that stopped our collective breath, hopelessness settling in.

Anyone who has dealt with a sick loved one understands the unpredictability from one day to the next; it feels like being strapped inside an errant roller coaster with no means of escape. There were days I simply dropped to my knees and cried.

Desperate and ashamed, I begged whoever was up there to take her, to put an end to her misery. A mother never wants her children to see her suffer, to see her stripped of dignity. I loved my mother enough to know that it was time to let her go.

Once near the end, on an afternoon of stark, raw, unfiltered grief, my mother and I were joined together on her bed. Mom was frail, a shadow of her former self. Hospice nurses were slipping in and out of the room.

We talked about her journey, the one she had taken and the one she was about to begin. We weren’t religious in this regard, but we understood life and what was in store. No one wants to discuss death; no one wants to say goodbye. But I knew in that singular moment that I might never have another chance.

I took my mother’s hand in mine and squeezed. I looked into her eyes and bared my soul, leaving nothing unsaid, ending with: “I’m going to miss you so much.”

I imagined my own children having to say goodbye to me or their father. I imagined how it had to have felt for my mother to look at me, knowing it might be for the last time. Even as much as it wrecked me, I wouldn’t have traded that exchange for anything in the world.

That moment is the one I fall back upon when I miss her most. The connection. The vulnerability. How we understood what we both needed, what we both had to say. Not everyone has that chance; my grief has taught me to have the precious conversations now.

My mother died on a cool December day, twenty-four hours after our sons became B’nai Mitzvah. Never one to crave undue attention, she waited, like most Jewish grandmothers, to slip away quietly. When I heard my brother’s voice on the phone, he didn’t have to utter a word. I knew.

I expected his call, but when it came it felt like losing my mother all over again. There was a finality that sucked the air out of me. I wished I had more time.

But I didn’t. I had no choice but to pick myself up and move forward. That’s what my mother would have wanted, what she would have expected.

Understanding grief is recognizing that it’s a process, one that’s unique to the sufferer. Grief comes in waves, ebbing and flowing, sneaking up when we least expect. It’s meant to be lived one day at a time, for no two days are alike.

We must trust the process. Trust the strength of love and memory, in what was lost, and in what we’ve learned, to eventually see us through. Time, in her ever-changing existence, has a way of healing even the deepest wounds.

My mother once said: when life gets hard, look for me. I’ll be there. I didn’t immediately understand that. In fact, her words only made me angrier. Angry at her diagnosis, angry at God for taking her from us, angry she wouldn’t see her grandchildren grow and thrive.

After eight years, I have come to find that while my mother may be gone, she is everywhere I look. She’s in the butterfly that flutters by my window, the thread through our family traditions, the whisper in the songs that play on the radio. Look for your loved ones. They are there.

I never wanted to be a member of this club, yet here I am. There’s no eloquent way to put it: it sucks. But it does get easier over time. The ache, less acute, morphs into something bearable, a tender spot, sensitive to touch and tears. Anyone who has lost a loved one knows. The club is eternal; there’s no expiration for your grief. But there is tremendous comfort in knowing you are never alone.

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Rochelle B. Weinstein is the USA Today and Amazon-bestselling author of emotionally driven women’s fiction, including This Is Not How It Ends, Somebody’s Daughter, Where We Fall, The Mourning After, and What We Leave Behind. Rochelle spent her early years always with a book in hand, raised by the likes of Sidney Sheldon and Judy Blume. A former entertainment industry executive, she splits her time between sunny South Florida and the mountains of North Carolina. When she’s not writing, Rochelle can be found hiking, reading, and searching for the world’s best nachos. She is currently working on her seventh novel. Please visit her at www.rochelleweinstein.com.