It’s a strange feeling when there’s something you desperately want to ask to one specific person but that specific person is gone. My Mom, as most women are, was the backbone and information hub for our family. When you lost the remote or the book you were reading, she knew exactly where it was. When you received a Christmas card in the mail from a family you’d never even seen before she knew exactly whose cousin’s aunt’s sister had sent it. Mothers are often carrying around millions of small details about their family and their lives – their birthdays, their allergies, their fears – so, as a Mom and as a friend, mine knew everything about me. She knew me from the music I liked to listen to all the way to my struggles with academics and anxiety. The same, however, can’t be said of my knowledge about her.

As children, we often forget that our parents had entire lives before we were even a thought in their minds. My Mom existed, for me, my entire life. I was only around for a short 22 years of my Mom’s 58. She had lived nearly 4 decades before I was born. While I had no previous life experience that my Mom was unaware of, she had tons. It wasn’t until she was dying in the hospital that I found out (on accident!) that she had been married previously before meeting my father. It wasn’t until after she’d died I found out she had been to Paris once before. My mom, for whatever reason, had kept these things from me. Now more than ever I wish I could ask her about what I know now – why did you get married so young the first time? What did you do in Paris? Why did you keep these things from me?

A part of me is saddened by the fact that my mom died without me knowing her fully. I’ll never be able to ask her the questions I want answered and that’s something I have to come to terms with. But another part of me is content with the fact that the side of her I did know was so entirely amazing that, in a way, it makes up for it.