I don't know how old you were when your mom died, but I was eleven. Here are some of the things I have experienced (directly or indirectly) since she passed: flat irons, chocolate croissants, menstruation, eternal bridesmaid-hood, abortion, Kentucky Derby hats, voting, happy hours, iPhones, watching someone you love marry another, vomiting into a plastic bag in the back of a cab, pot brownies, attempted suicide, war, George Bush, 9/11, phone calls from boot camp, opening nights, first kisses, helicopters, glitter eyeliner, the Internet, personal trainers, Barack Obama's presidential campaign, birthday parades, sex changes, college diplomas, miscarriages, scrunchies, BumpIts, strapless bras, Spanx, Paris, France and Iowa City, Sarah Kane and Stephen King, sex in all kinds of forms I wasn't supposed to ever know about, bosses with multiple personality disorders, Prince William, houses sold, houses bought, companies started, companies lost, gay boyfriends, brunch, 1000-thread count sheets, hangovers, coffee, Forever 21, godchildren, W-2's, fame, glory, disappointment, transcendence, heartbreak and a three-day juice cleanse. Point being, there's been some things we could have talked about in the past 20 years. That's the thing about being an adult with a dead mother - no matter how many times you program a random 1-800 number into your phone and name the entry "Mom," you'll never reach her. But it's Mother's Day, and rather than pump a bunch of narcotics into your veins or whine into your bourbon, you could just be a grown up about it. From me to you - because we all sometimes feel like a motherless child but only some of us can claim the honor - here are a few tips on acting like a grown up around your dead mom.
1) Get Over Yourself. You're still alive, aren't you? Chances are, quite a few people made sure you stayed that way. Don't be a whiny nincompoop and throw away the good efforts of other good people. You probably have a step-mother, a godmother, an aunt, some lesbians you met in college, or just a very earnest father looking out for you. If these people want to be your mother, let them. You can never have enough people waiting up for you with hot chili, or making sure you cut the price tag off of your dress. Whining would just make you ungrateful. Go tell one of your living mothers that you love them. Just because they didn't breastfeed you doesn't mean they wouldn't bail you out of jail or a steep bar tab. Get over yourself, and go love the one you're with.
2) Deal With It. Write a letter, start a secret blog with your sister, invade a southern country. Just do what you have to do to honor your feelings. It sucks having a dead mom. Sometimes you will miss her. Sometimes you will miss feeling like you missed her. Sometimes listening to your friends complaining about their meddling moms will make you want to slap them in the face. Sometimes going to work with a mean hangover and being thankful that you don't have a mom to call you and ask about it makes you want to slap yourself in the face. Sometimes you will want to wear her perfume and hope strangers accidentally call you by her name. This is all okay. Just do what you have to do to get through it, and don't hurt anyone else in the process. Remember, it's no one's fault that you have a dead mom, but it's everyone's fault that someone else bought the last individual Haagen Dazs Dulce de Leche. What were people thinking??? Don't they know you have a dead mom????!!!! People can be so insensitive.
3) Forgive Her. She was only human, you know, and all of us have to go sometime. No one meant to leave you, and no one sets out to have a child just to leave them alone. You think you've made some mistakes - try dying on your kid! That's not something you would write in a time capsule for yourself: "Have kid, then die on them." Shit happened, and it just so happened to your mom. Have a little compassion for your mother. She loves you, no matter if it's from really, really, metaphysically afar.
Okay, that's all I got. Took me twenty years to learn this stuff, too. The only other thing I can offer is that, just because it sucks that your mom died, doesn't mean the rest of your life has to suck too. May there be more glitter eyeliner than hangovers in your future. May you have deep, existential conversations with one of your living mothers. May the brim of your Kentucky Derby hat grow wide and the distance between your heartbreaks grow long. May you live so far in time that having a dead mom becomes not about having a relationship with an absence, but having a relationship with all the ways you grew into that empty space. If all else fails, have some ice cream. None of those fuckers with moms can judge you for it.
