I Miss My Mom

It has been years since my mother died, and I still have days when the first person I want to tell is her. Something goes well, or something hurts, or nothing much happens except that I am tired and would like to hear her voice without having to explain why. For a moment, I am thinking about what I would say rather than remembering why I cannot say it. Then the knowledge catches up, and I am left with a sentence that no longer has anywhere to go.

I do not mean that I forget she is gone. I know, and I have lived with that knowledge through enough ordinary mornings that it no longer surprises me in the same way. But wanting to talk to my mother is older than knowing I cannot, and sometimes the older part of me gets there first. It still expects a conversation where the rest of me has learned to expect silence.

Most days, I manage. I make plans and keep them, laugh without having to force it, and find myself looking forward to things I could not have imagined in the beginning. There are people I am glad to know and hours when I am simply busy being alive. Then, somewhere in the middle of an ordinary day, I miss her with a tenderness that makes it difficult to finish whatever I am doing. Nothing has happened that I could point to as a reason. I just want my mom, and for a little while, being an adult does not make that wish any smaller.

It can feel strange to need someone this much after so many years of getting through the days without them. From the outside, there is so little to explain it. I am doing what needs to be done. I can hold a conversation, make a joke, ask someone how they have been. Meanwhile, somewhere beneath all of that, I am having a much simpler thought: if she were here, I would not need anything special to happen. Being in the same room would be enough.

The things I still want to tell her

I used to think the hardest moments would always be the important ones: the milestones, the celebrations, the days when her absence would be obvious to everyone in the room. Those are hard, but there is a particular loneliness in having something small to say and knowing exactly who would have wanted to hear it. Something too unremarkable to announce, but worth telling her, if only because telling her was part of how a day felt complete.

I want to tell her what has been worrying me, explain a decision, and get halfway through before realizing I am still hoping she will tell me I am doing alright. Sometimes I want advice; sometimes I only want to complain about something neither of us could fix, then move on to asking about her day. I miss the possibility of a conversation that does not have to become a memory, one I could leave unfinished because we would have another chance tomorrow.

Even happiness can catch me this way. Something good happens, and I am glad, genuinely glad, until I begin imagining how I would tell her and find myself wishing she knew. The happiness stays, but now I am crying too, and there is no contradiction in it. I wanted this good thing. I wanted her here for it. Sharing the news with people I love still matters, but it does not quite answer the wish to share it with her.

There is so much about my life now that she never got to see. I have changed my mind about things I once defended and come to understand others later than I wish I had. There are parts of being an adult that make me want my mother more, not less, because I finally have the questions I did not know to ask when she was here. I wonder what she would recognize in me now, and what would surprise her if we could sit down together for an afternoon.

Sometimes I imagine having that afternoon, and what surprises me is how little I would ask of it. I would not need us to go anywhere. I would want enough time to get past the first tears, past the questions I have rehearsed, until we were talking about something ordinary again. I would want to hear her finish a thought I could never have invented for her. I can imagine what she might say, but I miss being surprised by the person she actually was.

The ordinary time I thought we had

When someone is still here, you do not know which small moments you will ache for later. A conversation can be only a conversation. You can be distracted, think about what you need to do next, assume you will remember the important part. There is a kindness in that ordinary carelessness, in being so certain of someone that you do not spend every minute preparing to lose them. I miss being able to take tomorrow for granted.

Looking back, I sometimes want to ask too much of the person I was. Why did I not pay closer attention? Why did I not ask another question, stay a little longer, understand that a day could become something I would spend years wanting back? But I was living that time, not remembering it. I could not have known which details would matter to me now, or how fiercely I would want something as small as one more unhurried conversation.

I wish I had more time with her, not a better version of the time we had. I try to remember that when regret starts rewriting everything. We were allowed to have ordinary days. I was allowed to be a child who did not understand everything, and she was allowed to be a person rather than someone I would one day need to remember perfectly. Loving her now does not require me to put every moment of the past on trial.

Still, if I could have one of those days again, I know I would listen differently. I would ask the question that occurs to me now and let her take her time answering. I would look at her while she spoke. And when we had nothing left to say for a moment, I would let the silence stay, because silence beside someone is so different from the silence they leave behind.

A long time is still not enough

When I say she died a long time ago, the sentence can sound more settled than I feel. I understand why. Years suggest distance, and in some ways there is distance. I can speak about her without crying every time. I can get through a difficult day without it becoming a difficult week. But none of that means I have reached a point where her absence feels right.

I have learned how to live without her. I wish I had never needed to learn. Both things are true, even on the days when I seem perfectly fine and there is nothing in my face or my voice to suggest otherwise. Being able to carry on has never meant that I stopped wishing things were different.

What frightens me sometimes is how far back I have to reach. I want to remember her as easily as I once knew her, without concentrating, without checking whether a detail is still clear. I do not want every memory to become precious through effort. I want the ease of knowing someone is in the world, so I do not have to hold everything about them in my head.

Sometimes I try to remember her voice and become too aware that I am trying. Was that exactly how she sounded, or how I have come to hear her in my head? I do not always know, and admitting that hurts. There are details I would give so much to be certain of, details I never thought to protect because they belonged to everyday life. I do not want remembering her to become another way of losing her.

I have to be gentle with myself here. A memory becoming less clear does not mean I have loved her less, or that I have been careless with what she meant to me. But knowing that does not stop me from wishing I could hear her say my name again, just once, without having to supply the sound myself. Not advice, not an answer to some enormous question. My name, in her voice, with me there to hear it.

And I miss her as a person, not only as my mother. I wish I could ask more about the life she had before me, what she wanted at my age, and what she found difficult but rarely spoke about. As I get older, I become curious about things I once took for granted, including the effort it may have taken to do things that looked easy to me then. It hurts to become a better listener when the person I want to listen to is no longer here.

Years do not make her absence smaller. They only make it quieter.

Let me be your child for a little while

There is a kind of tiredness that makes me feel much younger than I am. I can make the decision, deal with the problem, get myself through whatever comes next. I know I can, because I have done it before. But sometimes I want to stop being capable long enough to admit that I am scared, or lonely, or simply worn out from having to decide. I do not want someone to admire how well I am managing. I want my mother.

I do not need her to fix my life. I wish she could sit with me while I figure it out. I would like to explain something badly and start again. I would like to be quiet without worrying that I am poor company. More than anything, I would like to spend a little time with someone who knew me before I had answers, before I learned to make being alright sound so convincing.

There are people in my life who care about me, and I do not want to make their love sound insufficient. I am grateful for the ways they show up. But missing my mother is not an accusation against everyone who is still here. There is something I want to bring to her specifically, and sometimes the hardest part is knowing that I can be surrounded by kindness and still be unable to do that.

I do not need her to fix my life. I wish she could sit with me while I figure it out.

Today, that is all

I do not think I need to turn this into a lesson or find an ending that makes the sadness easier for someone else to read. Some days I can find comfort in remembering her. Other days, being told that she lives on in me does not answer the very simple wish to sit beside her. I can be grateful for the time we had and still want more. I do not have to choose the feeling that sounds more graceful, or pretend that gratitude makes the missing disappear.

Today I want to speak to her without making the words beautiful first. Mom, I am getting older, and there are things I am handling better alongside things I still do not know what to do with. Sometimes I am proud of myself and wish I could tell you that without feeling foolish. Sometimes I wish someone could see how much effort an ordinary day has taken, including the parts that would not look difficult from the outside. I wish that someone were you.

I wish you could know me now, Mom. Not only the parts I would be proud to show you, but the uncertain parts too, the things I am still working on, the ways I have changed that I do not fully understand yet. I would want to know you again as well. I keep thinking about how much more we might have had to say to each other as I grew older, how our conversations might have changed if we had been given the chance.

And I wish I could tell you I love you without those words having to carry a goodbye. I would like to say them at the end of an ordinary conversation, knowing we could speak again. That is the part I keep coming back to: not a perfect final moment, not a speech that would somehow make everything easier, but the quiet certainty that this would not be the last time.

I have things to do after I finish writing this. I will get up, put something away, answer a message. The day will keep asking ordinary things of me, and I will do them. Later, I might laugh at something and mean it. None of that will make what I have written here less true.

I miss you, Mom. It has been a long time, and today I wanted to tell you.

Aiko Tanaka

Some weeks an essay, some weeks a field report, some weeks a list nobody asked for. Aiko writes whatever refuses to leave her alone.