Nine Lives

Another Mother's Day

mum, sometime in her 30’s

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I’ve been thinking mostly about the lives I’ve gotten to live thus far. It has a way of keeping me grounded, while rejecting the paralyzing fear of each mundane minute passing by too quickly (but this fear isn’t quite what dampens my mood). We all know the most beautiful moments lie in the mundane, albeit a cliche. I guess with time, the speed of these moments increases to trick us, unmaliciously.

Take a good look, it says, and remember it this time. Mothering us altogether.

I like to believe I’ve started my third life already, maybe fourth, depending on how grey I feel that day. I miss my cat, Cecil; he is stuck in my first life, a time I never got to experience with him, but he is happiest there, and it is starting to make more sense than ever, plus, he gets to be fluffier than ever.

I think I was also happiest there—of course, I didn’t know it at the time, shocker.

I’m okay with this now.

I don’t know what his next life will look like, or if any of them will one day again coexist with mine. I just hope that he gets to live at least nine. I wonder if this is a real peek into empty nest syndrome. My dad keeps sending me old photos of us from his Facebook memories, and I thought today that I would do the same with Cecil if he weren’t a cat. I guess that answers my question.

I dream of my crying days, observing bitterly, as my son spun in circles, chasing his tail on my stained sheets. I feel that in moments of irritability, I emulate his tactics. Making scary faces at my roommate in the dark, scavaging for food as if someone else will feed me later, and my absolute favourite, aimless stretching on the living room floor, catching the afternoon sun rays. He remains a symbol of how it can all be so simple. That even a cat named after a haunted place can remind me to take it all in as it comes, even from hundreds of miles away.

Happy Mother’s Day to me.

Yesterday marked twelve years of another May without you. It has become more difficult to look at pictures of you, sharing them, and wanting to write words on how you raised me so well, when the truth is, you didn’t. I can’t remember if I wrote you a card for the last Mother’s Day you were alive. I was always mad at you. I see myself in you now in a way that I never could before. My hair is greying in all the same places, and my cheekbones match yours when I smile. I still believe we couldn’t be more different, but that isn’t true either.

I was twelve when you died, and that means by next year, you will have been gone longer than I had known you, and how well can you really know someone in your first twelve years of life? I am starting to have that feeling of being robbed again, a lost childhood. One false truth after another.

Recognize, validate, minimize, maximize, gratitude, repeat.

I am thinking about how, in these last twelve years, I have had an overabundance of Motherly love in places I wouldn’t have found without the absence of my own. This year, I had the pleasure of wishing a happy Mother’s Day to five amazing women who watched over me in angst and in grief, with a love that she was never capable of. At least not in my time. I am still learning to forgive.

My anger only simmers now, and it has reshaped all the vast spaces I’ve tried to fill with pictures. I’ve found it softer to replace my questions with the information I’ve acquired over time. The puzzle pieces are blank on both sides, but at moments, some shadows still catch your light. I suppose it’s a combination of us both.

I’ve convinced myself that my friends are getting sick of listening to me talk about the same ex-boyfriend time and time again, so I’ve created a fake relationship between us to try and relieve them from my woes. I’ve had years of practice at this point. Adjusting you like a Sims character. That would sound ironic if you knew anything about me. I don’t believe you ever watched Gilmore Girls, but I know that you wouldn’t have liked it. I think that’s why I’ve cast you as Lorelai, because you’re not a girlboss, you’re not anything at all—by Mother’s Day next year, it will be as if you don’t exist.

I’m trying to avoid this way of thinking. It’s the scary black cloud that drips tar through my skull. I assume you are familiar with that. A question I don’t need an answer to. Although I’m not sure how many lives you got to have in your time. In my fantasy of your life, they were few but grand. Somewhat close to the truth, that’s the best way I can create anything.

It starts with Hope, you’ve grown up there, but at this point, you’re fifteen, ambitious, ready to leave and start new. It’s centred around the story Grandma always shares about you stealing the neighbour’s horse, your best friend accomplice at your side. In my rendition, this is a hostage scenario. You offer to give back the horse to some douchebag trucker with one condition. A ride into the city, where all your dreams are waiting for you. From there, you and your accomplice are riding in the back of the truck singing Elvis at the top of your lungs, with the blueprint of your next life in your duffle bag, ready to be chased. I’m choosing to keep it open from there until I need to explore further, but I have the rest of my life for that.

How will I feel twelve years from now?

When I am thirty-six, twenty-four years without you. I hope that I will be adding to the story of your life, doubling mine along the way. It truly is so long, I do believe that. I guess my biggest question after all is, why did it have to be so unfair to you?

I know you would’ve laughed at that. I can hear you laughing now. I can see you in the mirror.

Happy Mother’s Day.

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me, age 23