I Didn't Actually Know Her

"Hey, did you get the picture I sent?"

"Yeah, you look like a pufferfish! I thought you already knew you were allergic to plantains?"

"No! I told you that I thought I was... because of last time. Besides, Mom was allergic to bananas, so now it makes more sense."

"She was?"

*****

This is how, at the age of twenty-four, I realized my mom was allergic to bananas. Her fruit allergy isn't exactly a big deal, but as her daughter, of now twenty-five years, twenty, for which she was alive, its kind of absurd that she bought them for me weekly and I never knew. That day changed the way I think about death and parenthood, indefinitely.

To be fair, I don't remember my mom eating bananas, but I had no clue she was allergic. After moving on from being dumbfounded, I couldn't help but feel like a bad daughter. How could I not feel that way? Its easy to ruminate on what goes wrong after someone dies. I have regretted all of the mother-daughter arguments we had. I have wished for her chicken and dumpling recipe, knowing I will never successfully recreate it. I still find it hard to believe that she doesn't know my husband or my pets. I think all of these introspections are standard with the loss of someone. Though, as time distances me from her passing, less of my moments have been spent dwelling on these things. Learning about my mom's allergy woke up a lot of those dormant feelings surrounding her death. The difference is, I never thought about my mom the way I thought about myself until all of my feelings resurfaced.

As I mentioned, I was twenty when she died, and that is the most obvious reason I didn't know my mom so well. Experts say that the brain doesn't fully develop until twenty-five, and now that I'm closer to my thirtieth year than my twentieth, I understand this as more than just some fact I read on the internet. A great deal of people, in their twenties, even later twenties, still depend heavily on their parents. Of course there are memes about becoming best friends with your mom, or the data that pokes fun at millennials for living at home, but parenthood is most often, truly spent with the focus on the kid, not the parent. With the maturity that comes from years, young adults learn to form a more independent bond with their parents. Then, they are able to gain insights into who their mother and father (or whatever guardians they have) really are. My mom was in charge of me until adulthood. Then I went through a short, two-year period where she wasn't really my boss, but I still depended on her. Then she was gone. I never got to learn about her as a person, because I was too busy participating in my own life, and too busy needing her. I really do feel like it takes more than just turning eighteen to figure out how to navigate life as yourself. Because I was so wrapped up in figuring out my story, I never really learned my mom's. I know the actual stories she told, and things she liked, like flowers and horses, but who was she? I talk to myself all the time. I make up funny rhymes or burst into spontaneous song. My mom never did that. But, did she at one point? What was going on inside? I have an inner monologue. I look in the mirror, some days and think, "you look like poo today," or, others days I think, "wow my eyes are so bright and pretty." Did my mom think these weird kinds of thoughts? What insecurities did she push down? Did she even have any? What was her inner monologue? As I've aged, and become more aware of parts of my identity, I can't help but wonder about hers.

In addition to me wondering about my mom's inner monologue, learning of her allergy gave new meaning to the idea that death leaves a hole in your heart. It isn't just about physically missing someone or not being able to talk to them on the phone. Since her passing, I've talked to her as if she were physically here. I have this idea that she would have the answers to all of my questions. Sometimes I tell my husband, "my mom would say..." and then I fill in the blank. Or I'll mention something she "would love." I do this based on my memories of her. The truth is though, I don't actually know how she'd help me solve my problems. I can remember countless times that she would say, "I don't know what to tell you." Maybe she wouldn't actually like the things I think she would like. Afterall, she was allergic to bananas and I had no clue. Before, I used to fill in the blanks to fill in the void, but now I've learned to accept the incompleteness that death leaves behind. There are so many unanswered questions and interactions that death doesn't allow to happen. What would my mom have been like during Covid-19? Does she think my personality suits being a first responder? What would she think about my little brother dropping out of college? I guess I'll never know, and that is a part of life that I have learned is okay.

The slide-show that played at her funeral had background music, and my oldest sister asked us each to pick a song for it. I chose "Walk With You" by Della Reese, because I remember my mom singing it beautifully when watching "Touched by an Angel." My younger brother chose, "Both Sides Now" by Joni Mitchell, because "Mom loved it." I felt that my song choice was inferior because I picked something, not because she loved it, but because it reminded me of her. After finding out my brother knew my mom was allergic to bananas, I was reminded of how inferior I had felt about the funeral song choices from years before. Since my brother is less than two years younger, we've always been close, so his song choice had made me feel like there was a gap between his connection to my mom and my own connection with her. I had not actually been able to listen to "Both Sides Now," since the slideshow, because I was angry at myself for not choosing something as meaningful to her. Things changed though. Revisiting that memory helped me recognize that relationships with my mom were different for each child. Before, I had felt like my family was in it together. I thought my siblings and I had all lost "my mom." We did; however, it finally became clear that "my mom" was also "my mom" to six other humans. She wasn't exactly the same for all of us. That taught me something valuable about parent-child relationships. I butted heads with my mom, a lot, and resented her for not being exactly what I wanted in a mom. The thing is, that parents are not who you want them to be, they are what you need them to be. Because parents are not only guiding you, but bending to what you need, they can lose themselves in their parental roles. My mom did this with me sometimes, and that made us less close. Therefore, she was less likely to discuss things, with me, like the topic of banana allergies. She was often was strict and demanding, and more lax with my brother. It wasn't out of playing favorites, she just had a different relationship with him. Thinking about this made me realize it is alright that I chose a funeral song for a different reason. Also, I recognized there is more than one way to connect to someone in life and to honor them after death.

Personally, I don't have any children, and I have been fortunate enough to not have experienced much death. My mom was the first big, and only loss I've dealt with in my life, and her passing has taught me a lot. Even though its been five years, I still learn things about her that I never knew. Learning these new pieces of information is no longer threatening to my relationship with her, but instead I see them as gifts that unlock another piece of the puzzle of who she was. I also know there is so much about her that I will never know, and that is because mortality does not allow for the puzzle to ever be finished. Every once in a while though, I gain a piece of seemingly insignificant puzzle piece, like a mild banana allergy, that changes not just how I remember my mom but how I connect the pieces of my life.