This essay was first published on November 12, 2010.
Every day I get an email with a tarot card reading from Astrology.com. Some days I read it, some days I don’t. Something told me to click today. This one is perfect.
“The Ten of Chalices card suggests that my power today lies in completion. I celebrate and am grateful for captured moments of simple perfection. Satisfying my hearts desire connects me by example to love, beauty, pleasure, and happiness in those around me and gives me confidence to take it to the next level.
“We made it. Unconditional love makes a family and home is where the heart is, so at last, I am never alone. I am empowered by gratitude and my gift is emotional fulfillment.”
This sums, in a nutshell, the place in which I find myself, another crossroads, one in which family plays a huge part.
I have fallen and I can’t get up.
Yesterday, it hit me. Each time in the past when my world fell down around my ears, my mother was always, always there for me.
She wasn’t a lovey-dovey mother, though she loved me more than words could say. She was more of the tough-love type. You know the kind. Just watch “Ray” if you don’t.
I stood looking out my living room window, staring at the dead and dying leaves as they fluttered in the breeze. I’d just hung up the phone with a friend who’d told me her mother had flown home a day early and was driving up from Atlanta to be with her at a funeral. Her mother barely knew the deceased, but because “Elaine” needed her, she was coming.
I stood with both hands clutching my sweats as if about to wade through deep water. Only my knuckles were white in a death grip. Grief welled up, and the tears leaked out. Instead of wiping them away, I let them flow.
And flashed back to scenes of child-me sitting beside Mama in the clinic, her hand resting on my shoulder as she fondled my hair. Mama beside my hospital bed. Mama letting me sleep with her when I was frightened or sick. Mama collecting me from the police station. Mama taking me to ER with a broken arm or to the doctor with an allergic reaction to a drug. Mama taking me in when I had nowhere else to go.
Her quiet courage, her unflinching resolve, her unwavering support. No matter what. No matter how badly I’d messed up. No matter how many times my heart was broken. No matter how bad my pain was or whether it was convenient for her or not. She was always, always there.
I let the memories wash over me as I stood clutching my pants, rocking side to side, tears flowing freely, unwilling to wipe them away or blow my nose, not wanting to staunch the memories.
Then came the deep inner knowing — I have fallen and I can’t get up.
Because my Mama is not here to make it better. There is no steady compassion. No kick in the pants. No mother’s love to help me heal.
I finally sat down. And cried some more. And in the middle of all that, memories of a beloved aunt crept in. An aunt in Villa Rica, another who was there when I needed her. And as sure as the sun will rise in the morning, I knew it was okay to need her now.
So I made the call.
I will see Aunt Joann this weekend. And spend Thanksgiving with her. I need family. I need my aunt.
So what, I’m in my 50s? I still need my Mama. Because I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.
~ la fin
I hope you enjoyed my post and maybe even found some answers here. As you can probably imagine, I cried reading it. Mama died in 2006, yet in 2010, I was still broken. Still needing her. Still suffering.
And now, 19 years after her death, that Mama-wound is still with me. Still shaping my universe in golden Kintsugi swirls.
Dear Mama, I miss you. I wish I could sit with you, knowing what I know today. There was no competition. Just two imperfect people. In love. And loving imperfectly. Thank you for always being there for me.
And thank you for your quiet, consoling presence guiding me from the other side.
Do you have a Mama story or thoughts you would like to share? Please do. We’d love to hear them.
~ That Rebel, Olivia/O. J. Barré
From my heart to yours, Olivia/O. J.❤️
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Your grief hit me so heavily. It is hard to navigate adulthood without a mother. No matter how old we get, we still wish for that one person to comfort us and tell us it'll be ok. Thanks for sharing.