Losing a Same-Sex Parent at a Young Age

“It's just like waking up,
In that second and a half,
The bliss of not remembering,
Before it all comes flooding back.” – Ben Folds

Yes, everyone dies. Yes, sometimes it is sudden. Yes, you are never prepared for it. At some point you lose someone you love, whether that someone is a friend, family or even a fur baby, it hurts and cuts deep and is so permanent.  

Here’s the part where my story may differ from some. I was 13 when I lost my mom. When you lose a parent as an adult you have memories to hold onto, you have a life. When you lose a parent as a teenager, pre-teen or child, you have scraps of memories. Little pieces you try to cling to and you hold on so tightly they tend to crumble to dust. Some days I can remember my mom’s laugh, other days her scent but most days, it’s a wash. I can tell you she dyed her hair a red-brown color and wore green contacts over light brown eyes. I can tell you she was a cardio queen and taught morning aerobics up until the day before she died. I can tell you she hated western medicine and doctors and believed in healing crystals which helped contribute to her downfall. I can tell you I loved her with all my heart. I can tell you it hurts everyday like a scab you can’t stop pick at and it festers and leaves a scar as a constant reminder. Some mornings I forget she’s gone, or that I’m grown up or that I grew up without her.

Most of the time I just feel guilty, because I don’t remember her, because I’m supposed to, because I hold a torch for someone I was only just beginning to know. My mother shaped me and molded me, even put me in the kiln but I wasn’t done yet, I wasn’t ready. I had just started puberty. I had no mother to walk me through hair and makeup, clothes and shaving, bras and tampons. Some people tried to help, but it was hard and there was pain in their eyes. My dad, tried, but he’s a man. If I ran out of deodorant or shaving cream he told me to use his. I spent one year of my teens smelling like Mennen without a bra and rarely shaven legs. I spent another year shaving everything including my stomach and chest because I didn’t know any better. My hair was a mess, my sense of style a disaster and it has taken me years YEARS to find the woman inside of me. To understand my looks, my skin tone, everything. Losing my mom meant losing my guidance and I had to feel my way through adolescence. My mother wasn’t there to tell me there’d be other boys or spend the night letting me vent with cookies and ice cream and movies. It was just me. I was angry for a long time. But it’s no one’s fault, there is no one to be angry at, my mother had a brain aneurysm. She had a blood bubble that slowly leaked into her brain. It amazes me how a little bit of blood can destroy a life, a family, a child.

Losing a same-sex parent at a young age means you don’t only lose your guidance, you don’t only live with guilt for not remembering, it means you also; don’t know how to respond or how to act. My husband told me at his father’s funeral, he didn’t cry and everyone thought this 11-year-old boy was brave. I didn’t cry at my mother’s funeral and everyone thought I was a heartless, cruel child. I’ve cried many tears for my mother over the years. What people don’t understand is as a child you have no coping mechanisms, you have no clue what you should be doing. You are in SHOCK. The gravity of the situation doesn’t hit you for YEARS. As a kid you barely understand your numbers and ABCs let alone death. Something so permanent, so absolute and final how can you expect a child to understand that? I cry at the drop of a hat, over anything, commercials, movies, breaking a glass, but my emotions are bewilderment even to me. I could mechanically tell you about how my mother died and what I had to do to survive without a tear in my eyes and usually with a smile because I know you’re just curious. My emotions have been severed and reattached and so they don’t work like you’d expect. You could be pouring your heart out and I will be dry eyed and supportive but maybe we could be shopping for clothes and I just start crying for no apparent reason. I never learned how to express correctly, how to be appropriate. My mom’s funeral showed me that people judge you constantly and it also showed me that it’s okay because I won’t force feelings, I’m me and that’s all I can be.

Today marks 15 years since my mom passed away. She’s been dead longer than I even had time with her. Each year the anniversary hits me a different way. Some years I completely forget, other years I am overjoyed thinking about the time I did have with her, some years it hits me hard and I can’t contain myself and other years I remember but am neither happy nor sad, it’s just another day. Losing a parent at a young age turns them into a ghost, they are a pale comparison to the person they were or we think they were. They are in your peripherals. They are misty and ambiguous. There are only so many pictures or videos to remind you of someone you can just see the outline of, like a mirage. When the pictures run out, when you've memorized them, when you look at yourself in the mirror and try to pull traits, there's not much more you can do. Some days I remember her voice and think I hear it in mine. Today, I remember everything, the way she clicked her tongue, the way she lost her temper, the way she danced, the way she laughed, her perfume, her outfits, her walk, everything. Tomorrow I might not be so lucky, best to hold on to today.  

Losing and Finding

My mother passed away July 26, 1997. She was 49.

It has been almost 15 years since my mother passed. The hole she left still gapes and bleeds. That’s a long time for anyone to go without the strong guidance and love of the woman who bore you. Over the years, I have collected woman. Strong women – physically, mentally and emotionally. I have looked to these women, not as a replacement for my mother though I often saddle them with the title of “Mom,” or “Ma.” I look to these women as my life. This is my way to show my appreciation for the women in my life who I could not bear to be without.

Throughout the years I have had many women come and go. The friends and family who have remained true in my life, who have at one point or another supported me, advised me, loved me and been on the other line of a distraught phone call; have steered me into becoming the happy, healthy, wonderful person I am today. The people I chose to surround myself with are the people that reflect not only myself but Nancy Adele Arciero, my mother. There will never be a replacement for her, ever. I remember how she was, how she'll always be. She was always smiling, she danced hula, taught aerobics, was involved in our schools, was a substitute teacher and could light up a room. For some people who knew her, she stood as their only true friend. Our house had an open door policy, as my house does now.

To name off every person and explain why I cling to these women would be misleading and dishonest to all of the accumulation of women who have guided and shaped me over the years. It’s not one, it’s ALL. There are the constant women who I interact with almost every day either through phone, email or in person. Then there are the woman who I want to interact with everyday, who I know I can call on if I need it, who offer advice when I ask, who have taken me in when I’ve fallen, who have helped me up when my life was a smear on a highway.  

If you are one of my closest confidants, if I tell you “I love you,” do not take it lightly, because I don’t. I cherish every moment bathing in the glow of a woman who is different than me, who has shown me another way, who has struggled and shared with me their past, their life and their misfortune. To the women who have listened to my stories without judgment, without reprimand, without “notes,” I thank you.

Losing a parent is never easy, for me, losing my mother was like being lost in the woods. I didn’t know which turn to take to get me home. The paths winded and curled and some were mere circles. I still don’t understand the finer points of make-up, hair, clothing, shoes and even my own feelings and self. I can tell anyone the stories of my life without shedding a tear. I am very good at detachment. Losing my mother set my life down a path I wasn’t ready for, as losing a parent does for anyone at any age. It was only because of the women I found to carry the torches at night that I was allowed to develop. They let me make a wrong turn and find comfort in their arms. They pushed and prodded and moved me in such profound ways that though I am still in the woods, I can see the forest for the trees and I have made a home in the wilderness. I have forged myself from fears and missteps; heartache and failure. Being lost in the woods is no longer a prison, it’s a choice.

My father will always be my best friend and my first love. However, being a woman is nothing like being a man. I am not a man, so I sought out those to teach me. You all have given me pieces of yourself. Little jigsaw puzzle pieces. I have used those pieces to fit and form and create a mother. A mother who is spread throughout the world, who comes from all backgrounds, all walks of life and all experiences.  Throughout the years it is my friends and family, MY WOMEN, who have given me back what I have lost almost 15 years ago. I can’t express my gratitude, but this was my attempt to do so.