N.K. Murray

I almost didn’t write this. I didn’t want to write this, because I am not really comfortable with feeling feelings that make me feel badly. (Say that 5 times fast.) I could have written it and done the electronic version of throwing it in the fire, cathartically deleting it, but I didn’t do that either. And, I don’t know why, other than that I spend a lot of my time writing things that evoke emotions as a way of keeping those emotions locked in my own personal Pandora’s Box in my mind and heart.

I write often about my dad. About the end of his life and how much I miss him. I don’t write as much about my mom through no fault of her own – truly. I lost my dad when I was barely an adult, and I lost my mom 11 years later, when I was nearly 33. My mom had already had 3 kids by that age, she told me frequently as I rolled my eyes out of her line of sight. She and I were fundamentally different from each other, and yet we share characteristics that are intrinsically linked to my personality. I don’t admit that often. And I don’t talk about my relationship with my mom, because it was complex on my side and I’m sure on hers as well. We both wanted the very best for each other, although I’m positive the definition of what that was, was different for both of us. She and I lost pieces of ourselves when my dad died, and those missing pieces altered our relationship from that moment until the moment she passed away. We both changed. I would like to think I changed for the better, but in many ways, I lost my mom on that day.

Let me explain. Maybe this will make sense to someone else, the same way it makes sense to me.

I was a daddy’s girl. He and I were alike, in both good ways and bad ways. I’m stubborn and sassy and smart and blunt and brackish at the best and worst of times. These traits help and hurt me, but they are me because I was his. I was driven from day one, and always wanted more. Both of my parents recognized my desire and did everything they could do give me the best opportunity to be everything I wanted to be, even when it was to their detriment. I went to a different elementary school for 5th grade because I was offered the opportunity to go into an accelerated program, while my sisters were located at another. I was involved in both intermural and varsity sports while in school, as well as two bowling leagues, plus National Honor Society, Hot Dog Committee, teaching Spanish at grade schools in my district and any number of other things that I might not have done without their support and Mom’s taxi. They did the same for my sisters through their endeavors as well. But, even from then, I was drawn to my dad’s view of the world. I worked at multiple auto parts stores throughout high school and into college because he thought it would be a good experience for me, as well as garnering a discount for him. He drove me to track meets and watched as I competed. For the most part, he taught me to drive, and he and I worked on my cars together up until I got my first new one a few months before he passed. That’s not to say my mom wasn’t involved in my day-to-day world – it’s more that I felt more comfortable walking in my dad’s shoes and under his influence than I did with my mom.

When he died, to quote F. Scott Fitzgerald, I was within and without. He was gone, and I was there watching life through this veil over my eyes, but having to progress the post-death timeline forward. The day he died, we went back to my parent’s home and I went through his briefcase, where I discovered he had insurance on nearly every debt he owed, so that upon his death, my mom wouldn’t owe anything. When I told her, she hadn’t any previous knowledge. He dictated everything from the grave, so to speak, as he had set all of the wheels in motion with the funeral home, and the cemetery and the VA to get his headstone. At that moment, I realized a chasm had suddenly appeared between when he was here, till where we were now without him.

In the next year, anytime anything went wrong or there was a question, I was called. Instead of being just a 22-year old college student, I became my mother’s 24-hour helpline. Perhaps that was never the intention, but my mom needed my dad in her life, and with him gone, I was the next best option. I wasn’t sleeping and went on doctor-prescribed sleeping pills so that I could function during the daylight hours. I developed acid reflux, and the start of an ulcer. I wasn’t eating or drinking much of anything but milk and Pepsi, which caused migraines of such an epic nature that I was sent for testing to make sure there wasn’t any underlying cause. I began to hate this post-dad life so much that I began to do the one thing I will regret for the rest of my life. I stopped answering the phone. I stopped responding. I stopped being a good daughter. My mom, bless her heart, loved me as much as she could, despite not understanding me the way I needed her to and yet I still withdrew from her. As the years passed, I began to realize how much I was being left out of, and the chasm grew larger and larger. I wasn’t being told when she was rushed to the hospital. I didn’t visit her at her new home, because inevitably I’d feel uncomfortable that I wasn’t where she thought I should be in life. She was so proud of me for what I was doing, I know, but I also felt that she wanted grandchildren, instead of grand-dogs and grand-cats. When I got engaged, she said something that I won’t repeat, but, I also won’t ever forget it. I felt badly for having the things that I wanted. Or, maybe I felt badly for having the things I wanted because she also didn’t have them? The distinction was lost on me at the time.

She was not well in late July of 2012. My sister went through hell that month, for reasons I won’t go into, and my mother looked paler than normal and ill. Bloodwork and some tests appeared to indicate she had something more serious wrong – cancer, and my husband went into action and got her an appointment at Roswell as I stood stunned. I visited nearly daily, driving 60 miles roundtrip to make sure she had fresh veggies and healthy food to eat. We took her to Roswell Park, where on August 16th, 2012, they told us she had Stage 3 Hepatocellular Carcinoma – liver cancer. After that, I called her multiple times a day. I texted her. I got short calls where I talked to dead air and disjointed, garbled messages that I now realize was as a result of slowly being poisoned to death as her cirrhotic liver failed her. We thought we had more time, but a call from my sister on August 28th had me rushing to the hospital in Lewiston to meet her arrival in an ambulance. My conversations with the doctors were not what I had expected, as I had firmly believed we could fight her cancer. Instead, with a shaking hand and a signature that didn’t resemble mine, I signed her DNR. And then we waited. 24 hours later, she was gone, and I was a parentless child. That night, I needed to sleep. I hadn’t slept in nearly 40 hours but my brain just refused to shut off. She was gone, and I was left with all of the things I hadn’t/couldn’t say, and all of the things I wasn’t able to be.

I gave her eulogy and I talked about all of these childhood memories that I will cherish for the remainder of my time on earth. And on that day, and for many thereafter, I hated myself for not being able to put aside my own failings to be a daughter to my mother. I hated myself and I went into a depression for nearly a year. I lived my life in anger because, if I was angry, I wasn’t sad. I signed up for the Ride for Roswell, because I was pissed that I had no parents. As long as I could be angry, I wouldn’t think about all of the many things I could have done for my mom from the time my dad died until the day she died. Being angry saved me in many ways, and it gave me the time I needed to breathe, so I could then process my life without her. She wasn’t a part of my daily life before she died, through no fault of her own, and when she died, I pushed the thought of her being dead out of my mind despite the fact it hung over me like a guillotine. The guillotine dropped when I was halfway through the 2013 Ride for Roswell, and sobbing in a rest stop as some stranger tried to console me. There was nothing anyone could do to make me feel better, and the anger was overshadowed by my physical and mental exhaustion, while my buddy Grief waved hello.

Why did I write this today? It’s International Women’s Day. A day for women everywhere to celebrate our strength and our power and our voices. I would not be the woman I am today, without the woman I lost in 2012. I could do not the things I am doing today, the things that I scream into the ether to bring awareness to, without my mom. I may forever live with the knowledge that I wasn’t a good daughter to her while she was on this earth, but I will also forever thank her for giving me the strength to find my voice, and find my purpose. I might never have gone back to get my MBA, or written Sister, or raised tens of thousands of dollars for cancer research without her.

So today, on International Women’s Day, I salute my mother, Michelle Mary Levesque Colegrove, for being all of the things that I am not, and for giving me everything I never knew I needed.