Still mourning her son’s untimely death, a Fresno mother strives to live fully today

I am back at it, writing my heart out after rehabbing a broken shoulder for what feels like an eternity, but in reality is seven months to the day. What has proven to be even more excruciating is the ebb and flow of sorrow spilling from every corner of the world. So here I go again, putting pen to paper while reflecting on mortality, aging, time’s passage and loss.

As readers know, this has been my preoccupation, maybe even my obsession, since my son Alex’s death in 2004. Writing about it periodically is my attempt to normalize grief, embrace it for what it is — love amplified. Each Mother’s Day, the presence of his absence stares me in the face. Even more so now, it seems, since COVID and the passing of countless friends and relatives in what I fear is a new epidemic of loss, another tidal wave of sadness. Grief has become a fact of life.

When my mother died a few years ago, it was the strangest sensation, realizing I was no one’s daughter any more. She had been our family’s rock and center of gravity. In the last few weeks a quartet of close friends have buried their moms, forcing them to say goodbye. Thank goodness for our priceless library of memories.

In the Armenian culture, we have a tradition of storytelling open-mike style at a memorial luncheon following the church or graveside service. We laugh and cry, stumble on our words in a valiant effort to ease sorrow and bring lost loved ones back to life one more time. We confess their quirky ways, recall holiday recipe snafus, and expose their love for penny slots, prosecco and See’s candy.

“I remember her perfect pilaf, every grain cooked to perfection.”

“I remember her going to the hospital to have a baby and coming home with twins.”

“I remember the time she poured water on a grease fire and nearly burned the house down.”

I remember. I remember. I remember.

Lately, I find myself leaving these funerals, memorial services, and celebrations of life vowing to muster sufficient bandwidth to live twice as hard and with greater sense of urgency.

This semester I’m teaching a writing class for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Fresno State. I love sharing favorite essays with students and one of them is Mitch Albom’s column about losing his mother. He writes about all the things one never reads in the final obituary — like how she refused to learn e-mail because she feared he would stop calling her. How she transformed him into a mummy for Halloween one year by wrapping him in toilet paper — then it started raining. How she had marched him into the library after someone had told him, “That book’s too hard for you,” his mother yelling, “Never tell a child something is too hard for him. And never THIS child.” And then he wrote, “She didn’t change the world. Only our world.”

Yes, that’s what mothers do.

When I turned 70 last July, daughter Danielle and my husband Dan hosted a big bash in my honor. I remember scanning the room reflecting on the cards dealt to this amazing group of humans — most all of us mothers. Cancers, infertility, children with special needs, kids who died untimely deaths, family estrangement, divorce, alcoholism and substance abuse; broken hips, femurs, shoulders, hearts. Handfuls of shattered dreams. All still standing, here we were, a close-knit group of thriving female friends, a living microcosm of the world, and with few exceptions, everyone had experienced the trials and traumas of real life.

As we begin exiting this horrific pandemic and the human toll it’s taken, as we make plans for tomorrow and the next day and the day after that, I sense a shift in priorities happening right before my eyes. Last month my daughter, sisters, niece, and a handful of childhood friends cleared their calendars and spent a long weekend together. Recently I cancelled two Zoom meetings, opting to meet friends for a lingering lunch. Dan and I have resumed Friday date nights. Last weekend the grandkids came for a sleepover.

There’s never been a better time to drop everything for the real thing.

This story was originally published May 8, 2022 at 5:00 AM.