My mother, remembered
Posted to LinkedIn on 2026-07-01. The text below is the post as published.
Yesterday was the anniversary of my mother’s death. (See context in replies.) I have been thinking about my parents a lot during this unexpectedly creative period of my life.
I used to wear my grief like a wound. I wasn’t ashamed of it so much as befuddled. How do I make sense out of the senselessness of loss? Me and the billions of humans before and after me asking the same question.
When I was 12-almost-13 years old, Mom and I cowrote a poem, “Sonnet of the Sea”. I no longer remember which lines she invented and which ones I devised. Here are the last 6 lines, the language slightly updated:
Between earth and sky, the water makes a bond,
That stars may touch upon the sands of time,
That waves may bathe the earth and flow beyond,
To prove the glory of God and God’ s great design.
And I, so small, may hold within my hands
The mysteries the sea’ s left in the sands.
My mother and I hit a rough patch when I came out to her and Dad at 19-almost-20 years old. She was angry, confused, and disappointed. She told me that I had the emotional maturity of a 12-year-old and asked me not to work with youth. I see now that she was grieving the life that she had imagined for me. Not long after my father — her husband — died, Mom and I reconciled. She even outran me on advocating for same-sex marriage. She called my partner-now-spouse her son. I inverted her admonition against working with youth into a life dedicated to fostering learning at all ages. Mom and I had 20 more years of mother-son joy before her last breath.
My mother never stopped loving me. She couldn’t stop loving me if she tried. Now I carry my grief like a scar. The wound hasn’t healed exactly, but it doesn’t hurt in the same ways. I carry no shame for it.
