I’ll walk through hell with you.

I’ll walk through hell with you.

A friend of mine (I will not name her, because it is her business if she wishes to tell) lost her mother recently.  My heart instantly went into overdrive when I read the words she penned.  I shed a tear because the loss of a mother is something no one should ever have to go through, though I know we all go through it at some point.  My heart still aches for her, because I know how lost I was when my mom was taken.  I would never presume to know her pain, because everyone feels pain differently.  Nonetheless, I wanted to write this – for her, and for every girl who ever lost her mama.

I don’t know when or how it happened, but one day… my pain was no longer constantly with me.  I feel a jolt in my heart when I think of my mom.  I think back, and try to picture her last days, and I can’t.  I can’t see her in pain.  I see her smiling.  I hear her laughing.  It’s bittersweet, but I don’t cry all the time anymore.  I’m not sure if it’s normal, and I would never try and guess why this is happening.  I accept it like I do everything else that has happened since mama left.  I go with it, because there is no use in dwelling on it.

But something else happened around that time, too.  My pain was no longer just my pain.  My pain was someone else’s, because that person was faced with the same pain I was facing.  Or this person had already faced my pain.  She knew.  She knew my hell.  She knew my tears.  She understood it all, even though she never met me.  My pain is my own in that I feel and felt it differently.  Like I said, we all feel pain differently.  But our pain is shared because this one thing – this loss of our mothers – has brought us together.

So, this short and sweet blog post is for all of you.  It’s for those of you who lost your mamas after you were grown and married and had babies; it’s for those of you who were too young to remember your mama, but remember that light she brought you when you were too young to understand it; it’s for those of us who lost our mamas at the point when we needed her most.  I do not know your pain.  I do not know your hell.  But I am here.  I am here to shoulder your hurt when you need me.  I am here to impart the minimal wisdom I have on the subject, because in spite of the fact that I do not feel the pain all the time, I do feel it at times.  I cry when I think about the fact that my mom won’t be sitting in the front row at my wedding.  I cry when I think about the fact that she won’t meet her grandchildren.

But I want you all to know that you aren’t alone.  It doesn’t matter if your mama’s been gone for eight days or eight years, she’s still not here.  And it hurts.  I know it hurts.  I have stayed up night after night trying to decipher why it had to happen.  I have no answers.  I have no quick fix for it.

But I have empty, open hands, and I am happy to take hold of yours if you need.  I have an ear that will listen if you need.  I have shoulders that will bear your burdens because I know they are overwhelming.  I will stand by you.  I will walk through this hell with you.  You are not alone.  I am here.  We are a tribe, albeit a disjointed one.  We are sisters.  We are warriors.  We are survivors.

But more than all of that, we are our mama’s girls.  And no matter what, we can face this together.