How Can You be Without a Mom?

A piece I wrote in 2020 (pre-pandemic) about my younger daughter grappling with my grandmother's death

I wrote this piece almost five years ago, at the beginning of 2020. I had planned to share it at Listen to Your Mother that year, but then the pandemic started, and it felt like the wrong piece for our Zoom show. I had forgotten about it until I was texting with a friend who recently read Charlotte’s Web to her 4 year-old. I think I may have shared it when I had a Squarespace blog, but realized that hadn’t shared it here. Just a heads up that it’s about my then four year-old grappling with death, so if that’s not what you need the day after the inauguration, this might be one to skip.

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My grandmother, Rena, died of Alzheimer’s disease last summer at the age of 93. Her death was not a tragedy, but it was a trauma. Over and over in the days after her death, I would think, stunned, “Rena is dead.” The truth of it took my breath away. And then, I would remember how much I had loved her- my grief made sense in proportion to that love. What I hadn’t anticipated was how deeply her death would affect my younger daughter, who was four at the time. My husband and I were getting ready to take our daughters to the movies when my brother called, and told me that if I was going to be with Rena when she died, it was time to come. I threw a few things into a carry-on and booked a plane ticket. When I explained to my daughters where I was going, my seven year-old was pragmatic. Old people die. Rena was old. She was dying. But my younger daughter’s eyes widened.

“Wait. Are you going to die?” she asked. “Am I?”

I cried, knowing that this was monumental, and also knowing that I had to leave before I could help her process it.

For the rest of the summer, she alternated between being clingy and fearful, and expressing a wisdom beyond her four short years, considering the hole in our family from different angles. After my grandmother’s funeral, she turned to my mom, suddenly sensing the magnitude of my mom’s loss, and asked, “Nana, how can you be without a mom?”

As a child, I was both devastated and fascinated by death. I can remember reading Charlotte’s Web over and over during Kindergarten, recognizing even then the beauty in Charlotte’s brief life, and in her death. Charlotte’s words, “We’re born, we live a little while, and then we die.” have stayed with me all these years. When I was six or seven, during the mid-1980s, I read a story in Newsweek about AIDS. As I read a list of potential symptoms-- sweaty palms, fever, night sweats—I became convinced that what was a hot, New England summer was actually the early stages of HIV. The article stated that some people had contracted AIDS at the dentist, and I pieced together my recent trip for a dental cleaning and my “symptoms.” One hot night, as we licked ice cream cones from a roadside stand, my mom rubbed my back and tried to reassure me that I was healthy. I can remember being soothed, and at the same time, having the dawning realization that she couldn’t truly be certain. I can remember the small buds of understanding begin to unfurl: some things were beyond even my parents’ control.

My daughter’s first experience with death has been much more personal, and equally formative. She talks about dying on a daily basis, and her tone is sometimes anxious, sometimes matter-of-fact. Recently, while eating chicken for dinner, she asked in a conversational tone, “When I die, is someone going to eat me?” She wants details: how far beneath the ground was Rena buried? Does it hurt her bones if someone steps on her? Are worms eating her right now? If my daughter holds her breath, will her heart stop beating? She has had nightmares about me dying, where she watches me turn into a skeleton before her eyes, and wants specifics about when other family members might die. “Is Nana old?” she will ask. “Is Grandma?” My daughter’s innate fearfulness has become heightened. When I leave her, whether I’m dropping her off at school, saying goodnight, or simply attempting to achieve the universal mom goal of going to the bathroom alone, she seems to weigh the possibility that I might die while I’m gone.

As a parent, it has been hard to know what to do with her fears and her questions. How much information does she need? How much can I stretch the truth? Her fixation on death is exhausting, both because it has affected our sleep, and because of the emotional drain of constantly discussing mortality. Because honestly, I don’t know how you can be without a mom. It’s hard enough to live two thousand miles from mine; I can’t imagine what I would do if I couldn’t text her for advice, or send her a picture of the girls’ latest art projects, or plan our next visit. Often, my daughter’s questions catch me off guard. Not long ago, we were in the car, belting out “Frozen 2” together. Suddenly, she asked “Will you love me when I’m dead?” She couldn’t see my tears, sudden and intense, from her car seat, and pressed for an answer. “Mom? MOM? WILL YOU LOVE ME WHEN I’M DEAD?” I turned down the music and managed a thick “Yes, Lovey. Always.”

As is the case with so much of parenting, I construct a lot of answers, a messy mix of hope and sadness. For now, the best I have come up with is that Rena lives through our memories, and that our memories make us sad and happy at the same time. That I will always be her mom. That we are going to live a long life together. That regardless of what might happen, she is safe, she is mine, and I love her- now and always.

I remember this day so vividly- it was right before the pandemic, and she turned to me at breakfast and said “I think we’re going to live a really great life.” Always happy for an excuse to share a picture of her in an Elsa dress.