December 20th

This is hard for me to write for a lot of reasons: reasons that have made it difficult for me to write anything about my mom since she died, no matter how hard or how many times I’ve tried, reasons I could mention, but I won’t because that’s not what this is about. This is about missing my mom.

I miss the way I could cry to her. I never had to have a reason to bawl in front of my mom. She always asked what was wrong, but a sufficient answer could have been, “I don’t know,” which received the same amount of comfort as crying over a boy. It didn’t matter why I was crying, she just wanted me to feel better.

I miss the way she would bring me my mail and sing the "We Just Got a Letter" song from Blue Clues. It never failed. Even when I was home from college and received the occasional letter she would sing the song and wave the letter back and forth.

I miss watching our favorite movies together. During the holidays, we always watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, Elf, and A Charlie Brown Christmas. All year round we would watch The Parent Trap, The Sound of Music, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. If these movies were on tv, we would watch them despite already knowing every word. I know her favorite and least favorite scenes in all of them and I miss the way she would make the same comments during the same scenes every time we watched them.

I miss baking with her. We usually baked the same three things, but it never got old.

I miss shopping with her. If there is one thing we knew how to do, it was shop. Between her and my grandma, it’s no wonder where I found my love of the hunt. We could spend an entire day at the mall and still find something we needed to look for at another store on the way home. She taught me how to cruise the sale racks, she taught me how to thrift, and she taught me how to spoil myself every now and then.

I miss days in Chicago with her. In this sense (and maybe only this sense), my mother should have been a French woman. Elle a connu comment flaneur.

I miss going to Culver’s with her. We made it into a proper meal, even if all we ordered were fries.

There’s a lot that I miss about her. There is a lot that I don’t. Grief is complicated, and even after three years I am genuinely surprised by how much I’m struggling this holiday season. It comes in waves and hits hard when you don’t expect it. I'm trying to let myself feel it, feel sad, during this, the most wonderful time of the year, in hopes that I can find a few good moments in spite of it.