A letter I wrote to myself days before my mom died

Photo by John Jennings on Unsplash

I read Rachel Hollis’s “Girl, Wash Your Face” and other such off-the-shelf, millennial self empowering books while I was taking care of my mom last year. They were what you’d expect: motivating and instructive. While going through the torment of the deepest and darkest fear of my life, I was able to write a letter to myself, as instructed by Ms. Hollis, that had to fulfill the following criteria:

• a letter to yourself as an imaginary friend
• unconditionally loving
• accepting
• compassionate
• sees weaknesses and flaws
• sees strengths and good qualities
• and keep writing for 10 minutes

I wrote this in my journal, while lying on my bed and trying my best to do all those things as genuinely as I could right before making dinner. It’s funny because this morning, as I sat in the bright, airy Airbnb my friends and I are living in here in Lima, Peru, I randomly opened my journal to this page and found the letter. And although it’s only been 5 months since I wrote it, my god it really shows that it’s been 5 long months since I wrote it. I was quite impressed with myself, because the 5 months ago me reminded me of things I needed to hear today.

This is what the letter wrote.

Hey friend,

I know you have just gone through the hardest year of your life. You found a few new callings, were able to leave home and fend for yourself in the great white north – you did it all successfully and ultimately realized the millennial dream – all for it to be taken away from you. You faced horrors you never thought would occur, and you loved so hard it created a negative effect. I know. I’ts been the worst year, and your worst fear is a living, pulsing thing that’s been drawn out for 5 months already.

But trust me when I say that if it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger. I know, with 100% of my soul and spirit and being that you will take everything you’ve gone through this year to live life as best you can for the rest of your days.

You are well-loved, because you have loved. You have kind and generous friends, because you have been and are a kind and generous friend. And you have a family that loves you unconditionally, because you have loved them unconditionally.

Of course there will still be difficult days ahead – but not really. You’ve seen discrimination, worked at the bottom, worked at the top – you know how it is. And everything will be breezy from here on. You have what you need to do anything you want in the world. You can realize all those beautiful dreams you want to achieve.

I know some of the fear and anxiety is coming back. That’s ok. Because remember your resting bitchface? That’s what you do best; put it on, erase the anxiety and just take action. No more inaction, no more paralysis by analysis. You are so well disciplined – a perfect model of your mother – and so much more. You keep her memory alive by taking advantage of her teachings – and not implementing her habits that ruined her; the things she never liked about herself, her overworking, her antisociality. You, my friend, are a most improved version of your beautiful mom, and you should know that you inspire so many others.

Don’t worry about social constructs of timelines – not even those constructed in your head. Always remember that the universe has your back, that what needs to happen next will always happen next. Don’t think or worry too far into the future. Ask questions. Ask for help. And remember to ask about your friends. Not every detail matters. And not everyone you meet matters in your life. They are all lessons. And be ok to be yourself around people. You will find your true friends ands soulmates better that way. Remember, I am only a pen away.

Love,

Me

I suggest you also write a letter to yourself, as an imaginary friend, whether you’re going through a tough time or not. Look at the way you speak to yourself while stuck in your own mind, and look at the way you speak to yourself as a friend. Our minds are traps for abusive relationships – lifelong ones if you allow the mean things you say to yourself manifest into your daily life. Find compassion for yourself, just like you do for your friends when they’ve lost a job. Be kind to yourself, like you’re kind to your friends when they’re disappointed someone else’s actions. And most of all, be a friend to yourself, give yourself the advice you give to your friends when they can’t get themselves out of their own minds, as well.

Thank you, friends

One time on a first date I was asked, “who is your best friend and why?”. I thought it was a fantastic question because it tells you quite a bit about a person. And this was and still is my answer: I don’t have one and never really have. In high school I got along with most social groups and cliques. Since then I’ve done a good job of seeing everyone for their strengths – every relationship you have has a purpose and a value to exploit; if you don’t know how to take advantage of each person’s ability to be a good friend you’re going to run into emotional turmoil. No, you should NOT go to your mom who married at 20 and has been at the same job for 35 years about modern-day dating issues. Yes, you should go to your level-headed male friend when you’re drowning through a breakup and about to contact your ex. Again.

If I’m lucky, I’ll have only a few more decades to do whatever else I’d like to do on this earth. Our sunsets are numbered, our conversations are limited, and our hugs will come to a startling halt one day. I find it difficult but good for my inner peace to focus on these people only, and be the best friend I can be to them. Our parents and family and friends are only getting older, weaker, and sicker. One day I’ll be needed, too.

All that being said, I did some strange and unforgivable things during the 6 months my mom was slowly dying. And for some miraculous reason the group of people I call my friends still did the things I needed them to do as such: they’d forgiven me and are still the kind, generous, helpful, caring people I’d ever known them to be. And they deserve some special recognition, so here goes.

 

• Thank you, friends, for telling me you have no idea what to say about my mom dying. I value honesty so much more than meaningless words to fill sound and space. I was happy to hear it. I had no idea what to say, either.
• Thank you, friend, for reaching out after 20 years of no contact. Hearing about your own mother’s story was cathartic while I was living through the same thing.
• Thank you, friend, for forgiving me after I yelled at you at a Korean restaurant. I know you had the best of intentions, and even though I still don’t agree with what you said, I should not have made you feel bad about it.
• Thank you friend, for forgetting about our disastrous sexual encounter and trying fiercely to help me function and keep my family alive while your own mom was sick at home. Your boldness and tenacity is inspiring. I’m still wondering how to reach out to you again.
• Thank you friend, for forgiving me after getting your car squashed by a semi. It’s just a car, I know, but you didn’t have to lend it to me for months, and by choosing to do so I was able to buy groceries, drive my mom back and forth to the hospital, and keep my family functioning(ish) and alive.
• Thank you, friend, for flying across the country to take care of me.
• Thank you, mentors, for reaching out consistently to make sure I was still alive.
• Thank you, beautiful, smart, gentlemanly men for saying things to me I probably don’t deserve. Because of that I believe a little more that I am that hot, intelligent, kind, interesting person you all seem to think I am.
• Thank you childhood friend, who I only see when my parents die. I’m sorry. You’ve got a strong hold in the recesses of my memories. I promise this will never happen again.
• Thank you, friend, for sharing 3 bottles of wine with me in 3 hours. I never told you that when I went home that evening, I got off the bus and cried so hard at a bus stop that a fire brigade came to my aid.
• Thank you, friend, for remembering the qualifications and skills I have and still want me to be a business partner. I’m a shell with good business skills.
• Thank you friends, for constantly offering to adopt me. Those I’ve lived with – I will do so again, and I’m constantly making my rounds.
• Thank you friend, for consistently and constantly asking me out, even though I kept saying no for months and months. I am so happy you’re in my life. Let’s do more skiing together.
• And thank you universe, for allowing me to cross paths with such fine human beings. I am grateful for their strength and generosity; I hope that one day I can do the same for them as well.

 

Thank you all for being genuine, honest, patient, and taking care of me while I bumble around the globe trying to get back on my feet. Please keep calling me out on stupid shit that I do, and please keep sending me off to private islands when my personal safety is threatened. You are all the best of friends. I love you.

 

Irene

Orphaned at 30

As a child my biggest fear was my mother dying. When my dad was still around and my mom worked night shifts, I’d sneak into my parents’ room where my dad would be sleeping, way past my bedtime, and look out their window where it faced the garage door of our condominuim. From the 3rd floor, the 8-year-old me would always rush to see when my parents drove the car out whenever I knew to do so Then for nights on end when I couldn’t sleep I’d sneak past my snoring father and peer through the dark window, imagining that my mom would never come drive through those garage doors again. That’s all it took for the waterworks to start; I didn’t need to imagine her in a car crash, or slipping and falling, or being stabbed to death by anyone. All it took was to imagine her never coming back again.

That was when I tried to practice grieving for my mom. I tried to practice being less fearful of her ever leaving me, leaving this earth for any reason. I thought that if I cried enough times over her, that this fear of mine would become less scary. It never did, and realizing this I eventually stopped practicing crying and imagining her leave me.

As an adult my biggest fear was still about my mother dying. You know the crippling fear that holds you, brings up a lump in your throat and tears well up in your eyes because something so terrifying could possibly become true? That happened a handful of times over the fear of my mom dying while I was an adult, before she got sick. One time while I was about 19, we were living in a basement and my 13-year-old sisters and I freaked out because mom never came home after work. There was a huge snow storm, and my mom worked about 7 minutes away from home, so there was essentially no reason why she wouldn’t be home 3 hours after work ended. My sisters and I brought chairs out into the complex lobby and sat watching the cars go by, forgoing dinner and waited since she had no cellphone (and would never eventually get one). She came home and was so surprised; she thought we were silly to be so worried because she was at the mechanic the whole time.

As an accomplished young adult in the role of my most ambitious career dreams, I got a call 2 months in, working at a boutique branding firm, about my mother’s ovarian cancer having no chance at a trial medicine that we thought would save her. I cried then, in this beautiful office of a mansion, so uncontrollably hard that my boss at the time was very nearly traumatized by it. This would be the start of my adult practice of trying to fear her death less.

And it never got better. Over the following 4 years I would be at a constant state of shaking fear of every small thing that happened to my mom through the disease – the best feeling I could get was relief when I realized whatever it was would be treatable. During the middle 6 months of 2018, when I had left my life and work in 2 glorious new careers in Yellowknife, Canada, it never got easier. April 30th, 2018 I moved back home to Toronto to take care of my mother fulltime. The trial medicine that had kept her alive for the last 2 years had stopped working; the disease was spreading with vigour again. And the crippling fear of my mother’s impending death brought me to tears every single day for 6 months. Every day I would hold myself back, and every night I’d cry myself to sleep, violent sobs vibrating through the walls of our house. My mother never mentioned to me that they kept her up. My sister, having to wake up every day for 6am for work never mentioned it either. These were sacred nights and the last times for me to practice embracing the fear of her impending death.

On the day that I turned 30, September 11th, 2018, my mom finally told me that she had to die. Her disease had manifested in such a way that everyone was suffering to an unimaginable state. And my mother, my sweet, bold, incredibly honest mother, asked for an assisted death. I did what she asked for, facilitating my biggest and baddest and largest fear in life the day I turned 30.

We never stop being children, they say. My father died over 5 years ago, and although he was a bad person and a bad father, I still remember him as he was when I was a child. But now without my mom around, I’ve truly lost the idea of being anyone’s child.

On October 17, 2018, I lost my identity of who I was, along with my beautiful mother who created me. And on that day, I finally lay my largest fear of life to rest. I was finally relieved from the staggering weight of years of anxiety and it was replaced with a kind of emptiness that is impossible to put into words.

As I work my way through staying afloat through life these past 4 months, I realize that I’m cultivating a new kind of practice now; the practice of being a functional human being again. I understand that this will never resemble any sort of life I’ve lived prior to my mom’s death, but I also, if impossibly numb from all emotions, feel deeply grateful to the friends and family that have tried tirelessly to dive into the deep emptiness to retrieve me, over and over again. There’s a special place in the universe for these people, and they deserve special recognition in my life. I try my darned hardest these days because I think of them, because I’d disappoint myself too badly to ever not try as hard as they did and do for me.

There is not a single day that goes by where I don’t think of my mom. But with every other thing in life, everything is managable when you practice, and try over and over again. Each time I mention her, the lump in my throat gets smaller, the wells in my eyes turn out smaller. Each time I see her mail and name unexpectedly, I cringe a little less. And each time I can’t relate to a conversation of people speaking about their parents, I try a little less to ignore thinking of my own. Unlike my fear of my mother’s early death, practicing living life gets easier the more I try. And as I do so, I think of all the other things in life that I can practice over and over again, so that living life and being a functional human being again gets easier each time.