Eight years after the graduation I couldn't show up for, I passed through the gates of Spelman College just as I had hundreds of times in my early 20s. This time, I was approaching 30. It was a sweltering May day, but I was wearing the denim jacket on which an artist friend painted a portrait of my mom. I was there, back at undergrad, to re-enroll so I could take one last class and graduate.
Even though my mom died when I was a high school sophomore, it wasn’t until I was away at college that the grief around her death became difficult to deny and then unbearable to feel. I was being swallowed by a monsoon of emotions that I had not allowed myself to feel when I was young.
My mother was my best friend growing up. She understood me in a way that my siblings and my peers didn’t. When I came home to moan and complain about my school day, she would coddle me and feed me and commiserate. Most of our time we spent silently beside each other, engaging in activities that brought us joy: usually reading. I could catch her smirking and know that she and I were sharing a thought. She found my quirks amusing, whereas everyone else had decidedly labeled me annoying. I was often accused of being just like her. She was my world.
When she noticed that I wasn’t being challenged at school, the subject of most of my complaints, she made my education her focus. She transferred me to better and better public schools, and then we pursued scholarships for private schools. Meanwhile, she had never graduated high school, but she got her GED and a nursing degree. There was a clear financial shift for my family once she started working. I came to believe in the promise of a good education. I was driven in my pursuit of college, by any means. When she died, after living three years with cancer, I was in 10th grade. I did not stop to grieve. I went to school the day after her funeral.
Facing College Without My Mom Who Died
I graduated and got into college with another full scholarship. I had achieved our dream. But as a young adult embarking on this next stage of life, it seemed that every day presented an experience that I was going alone without my mother, my champion, and my best friend. Stifling my emotions, the way I did in high school, suddenly became an impossible task. Moving into my dorm, opening my first bank account, choosing my major, or not getting a care package full of her amazing cooking were among the things that made me miss her daily and desperately.
By spring of my senior year, my friends were busy making plans for graduation and the arrival of their families. I was paralyzed by missing my mom. Friends were, justifiably, perturbed that tickets weren’t unlimited. Sets of grandparents or stepparents would have to be denied the opportunity to see Michelle Obama deliver the commencement speech. The idea of meeting this moment without my mom was impossible to even imagine. I never applied for graduation. And even though I was one class shy of graduating, I didn’t show up for my last final exam. I couldn’t face being a young adult.
Keeping My Mom’s Memory Close After She Died
I didn’t squander my eight year gap from undergrad. I wrote songs and performed them somewhat professionally and supported myself waiting tables. I lived a nomadic existence with lots of artists for friends. But it wasn’t quite the life I had envisioned for myself. I was not on the path I had dreamed up with my mom. I had let go of my dreams and was living someone else's. Despite my talent, I never really aspired to be a singer. I wanted to be a teacher, own a house, and grow my family. I’m grateful for my talent in art and music, but I didn't envision singing and traveling as my fulltime gig. I wanted to host holiday dinners and family events from my kitchen. Denying the pursuit of my dreams was my way of burying the pain of being a young adult without my mother. I chose to close the door on my aspirations, because they were stamped with my mother’s existence and her approval. I couldn’t envision my wedding day, giving birth or buying my first house without also seeing that my mom was not there.
At the age of 29, with my college credits set to expire and the looming knowledge of a finite fertile period, I was finally ready to face my fears and my grief. I was terrified, but then I found that when I faced my true aspirations, I was also able to face the memory of my mother and the weight of those emotions. Having her painted on my jacket was a first step. I needed a talisman. A way to carry her with me. Because she died when I was so young and I lived several states away from home, no one in my life knew her. I needed to make her present. My jacket is how I met my husband. His first words to me were, “I like your jacket.” When it was time, I found ways to include her in the birth of my first daughter and to integrate her into my spirituality. I have a master’s degree in education. As I live my dreams, my mother is here with me, always.
I volunteer at Kate’s Club when I can because I love how the organization helps kids integrate the memories of their dead into their lives. It took me over a decade to be able to do what Kate‘s Club manages to do for so many throughout Georgia. I’m grateful for this resource.
Contact Kate’s Club for free grief support in Georgia
Kate’s Club empowers children and teens, their families, and young adults facing life after the death of a parent, sibling, caregiver or someone important to them. The organization builds healing communities through recreational and therapeutic group programs, education and advocacy. Since its founding in Metro Atlanta in 2003, Kate’s Club has served thousands of individuals who are grieving, through both member and outreach services. Kate's Club offers services in Metro Atlanta, Southwest Georgia, Northeast Georgia and Coastal Georgia.