Sixteen Years

Sixteen years ago today, the thing that continues to most profoundly affect my life happened.

I lost my mother.

A friend told me then that it never hurts less, it just hurts less often. Thanks for that, Joan. I have found it to be the truest thing ever said to me.

To lose a parent is to be made to feel like a lost toddler in a Department store. I still feel that way sometimes.

But mostly, I just feel this profound hole that nothing fills. I keep wanting to pick up the phone and call, wanting to tell her all of my adventures.

I do tell her, but it isn't the same.

The last time I spoke to my mother was on my birthday in 1996. She called me, like she did every year, at 1:26 am, the time of my birth. It was the one midnight call I got each year that never made my heart race thinking something was wrong. I grumbled each time I was roused from sleep, but I secretly loved it and I miss that call.

I wish my family had been the kind to make home movies so I could hear her voice again, see her again in something other than the still photographs, like the one above with my grandmother, great-grandmother, and a certain little baby dyke, that never quite capture her spirit.

I am lucky. I still have my dad and he is awesome. But I am jealous of people like my wife who have both of their parents.

So do me a favor. If you still have your parents, call them. Tell them you love them. Do it for me.