In May of 2009 I came up with this great idea to begin writing a blog and use it as a countdown to my 50th birthday. On my actual birthday in 2010 I would do a stand up comedy show (a life-long fantasy) and share what I had written with all my friends. The topics were all over the place, essays, humor, and memoir. One “series” of posts related the stories of my grammar school days. I loved telling my children funny stories about all the nasty teachers I had. These posts were my form of literary revenge. I did it with humor at first, but the tone changed when I wrote about 4th grade. I had to recount what it was like being a 9-year-old whose father had just died in March and having the class art project being the construction of a Father’s Day card.

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On that day in June of 1970 I made my most meaningful Father’s Day Card. It was all about my mom and how now she was both my mother and my father. When I gave the card to my mom she cried. She knew how hard it must have been for me. My mom and I moved forward together, getting closer and closer as the years went by. Our relationship often confused people. It evolved into a complicated, all encompassing place that only she and I understood. We were both afraid of confrontation with anyone except each other, leaving our relationship one of love, loyalty, matching personalities and yet containing an element of volatility. Our relationship was the only place where we each felt truly safe.

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My mother’s life read like a Dickens novel. When I was growing up she would tell me the stories of her troubling childhood. She was the youngest of five children. Her only sister was the oldest, and there were three boys in between. Because of the Depression, my mother had to start working at the age of 8, officially ending her childhood. The “hard” life seemed to follow her everywhere. But her naturally outgoing disposition carried her through all the difficulties.

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When my own childhood started getting more complicated I slowly learned the value in the lessons of my mother’s stories. I was only six-years-old when my mother began to lose her siblings, first a brother and then her only sister died. A year later, my dad died. My mother’s main source of emotional support, her sister, and our family’s financial support, my dad, were both gone. Two years later my grandmother died and my mother and I found ourselves immersed in grief yet again. All this shared loss bound my mother and I into a thick rope of determination and hope. We tied each end of that rope tightly around our waists so we would never lose each other in the stormy waters where we found ourselves adrift.

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As my mother got older she dealt with horrible pain from arthritis and even had a triple bypass, yet she never seemed “sick”. Her love of life and people kept her going and often kept other people going as well. She was quite popular in her retirement home. She loved dinner with friends, playing bingo and beating me in cards. Her mental acuity never waned.

But when 2009 began winding down, so did my mother. My goals for 2010 suddenly changed, from writing my blog and planning a party, to spending time managing my mother’s increasing medical needs, and realizing I was counting down to something far more important than my 50th birthday. I was running out of days where I could count on my mother’s love and support to get me through whatever difficulties life brings.

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My mother’s strength of spirit could always be felt by the power she had in her voice. It had an indescribable tone she could summon up on demand when needed. It was that voice that always relieved my fears. It was that voice that was starting to falter. On April 20, 2010 my mother untied her end of our rope and left me alone to tread the waters in this turbulent world. I am surrounded by the invisible grief no one else can see. I had no idea how heavy emptiness can feel.

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Thanks for reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Benita Haberman, Guest Blogger

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Benita Haberman is a writer who lives and works in Chicago. Besides blogging at House of Mirrors she is a stay at home mother of a 14-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl. She also uses her writing skills to assist people with writing speeches and toasts for a variety of special occasions from Bar Mitzvahs to Wedding Anniversaries. She has taken stand up comedy classes at the Improv Playhouse in Libertyville, Illinois and her first two 5 minute debut performances are posted on youtube. - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor