9 Years Later: Lessons From the End of a Pen

I sat down this morning to journal — a habit I have been attempting to create over the years. My most recent entries have detailed my day-to-day life. What I did that day or week, poetry, doodles, the venting of anxious feelings. Typically it is anything that comes to mind as I put pen to paper.

Each entry begins with the day’s date as a way to chronicle my experiences and related thoughts and feelings should I ever choose to revisit previous entries. But today, rather than finding words as they come, it was the date that prompted my writing. May 4th, 2021.

Today is my mom’s birthday. It is the 9th birthday of hers that she has not been physically present for.

She was many things: A mother. A wife. A daughter. A sister. An aunt. A hairdresser, Sunday school teacher, and friend. She died of brain cancer in March of 2012.

In the past on this day I have shared brief posts on Instagram, wishing her a happy birthday, fully aware of the irony that she would never see it, but needing an outlet for those feelings. The posts often resulted in a surge of messages and comments offering condolences and support. One time, a friend of mine even brought me flowers. It was such a first for me that I had to put them in an empty Jack Daniel’s bottle because I didn’t have a vase (college, am I right?). It’s a memory that makes me misty-eyed whenever it pops back into my head.

This time of year is always emotional for me. The anniversary of my mom’s death is March 13th, her birthday is May 4th, and Mother’s Day is the subsequent Sunday. Now, I have always been one to spin the days affiliated with my mother as celebrations. Celebrations of the memories she left us, the lessons she taught us, the overwhelming brightness that was her spirit. But this year it wasn’t until I sat down to air out my thoughts this morning at 8 AM that I realized the date. Not that I had forgotten it’s significance, more that I have been so preoccupied with figuring out my life that I had not realized the date was already upon us.

I stared at the date scrawled into my journal: “5/4/21”

Going over each number repeatedly, emboldening it with my 0.3 mm ballpoint pen. I felt ashamed. A lonely embarrassment that was only for me to feel and sit with.

I sat with those feelings for a few moments before writing. Letting them slowly bleed into the pre-existing thoughts in my mind. The ones I intended to write about upon sitting down today. The recent resignation of my job. The deep-seated stressors around financial security. The recent spike in my anxiety. The guilt of having the privilege to leave a stable job when so many people are desperate for work. An equivalent guilt for feeling unhappy despite the overwhelming number of positives in my life.

I felt guilty about wanting to write about those feelings today; a day that is usually reserved for reflecting on the memories, lessons, and dreams from my mother. However, after allowing the words to stream from my mind to paper, I realized that there may not be a better time to revel in these thoughts.

A little over nine years ago I was 17 and my junior year of high school was winding down. It is that strange period of time when you are months away from having to decide what you want to do with the rest of your life. Get a job? Learn a trade? Go to college? As if any 17 year old really has any idea. At a time where we still have to ask permission to use the bathroom, we are expected to figure out the direction of the rest of our lives. It was during this time that I held my mother’s hand as she exhaled her last breath.

That experience changes you forever.

It changes the way you move through the world. The way you value things. The way you perceive what really matters.

It’s that perception that impacted my decision to get involved with organizations and communities that give back. It’s that perception that made me switch majors after my first semester of college. It’s that perception that told me getting a drink with friends who were about to move across the country was more important than two more hours of studying. It’s that perception that calls for change when I am unhappy in something for too long. It’s the perception that the only thing that matters is the time we are given and how we use it, because none of us know when ours will run out.

So today, just like every other March 13th, May 4th, and Mother’s Day before, I felt my mom sitting there with me. Guiding my pen and leading me to find answers to questions I’ve been asking myself a lot recently:

“What would she have wanted me to do?”

“Would she have supported my decision to take a risk and pursue something new?”

“Am I doing the right thing?”

The answer was an obvious one. One I have heard before, and have had to remind myself of in the past. It was what I learned on that early morning in March nine years ago. It was the answer I found again this morning at the end of my pen:

There is no time to be anything but happy.

Happy Birthday Mom, I love you.