Letters to my mother. The conversation that never happened

We sat in my mother’s favorite café and drank a latte macchiato with lactose-free milk. She looked deeply into my essence with all the love and tenderness she had. She gently took my hand, and with tears glistening, she met my gaze and told me.

My dear, please, we need to talk about this, and do not interrupt me.

She wiped away her tears with a tissue and continued.

Those gorgeous high-heeled boots that are in Kyiv, you need to give them to Aniia, my goddaughter.

She nodded her head. I was numbed and silent.

I am sure Aniia will like them, and they will suit her perfectly.

She looked at me even deeper, but I felt as if she gazed somewhere into the middle of nowhere, into the darkness that is approaching. I felt I cold, my body locked in spasms. 

That cashmere sweater, those expensive one… I hardly wore it…. It is so stylish and elegant.

She looked again through me to that approaching darkness, not loud but very calm and terrifying.

I think Natasha will like it. Gift it to her and tell her that it is important for me that she wears it.

I could not help but weep. My mother did not mention the word “death” - she was terrified of that word and tried to avoid it as if by doing so she was prolonging her life on Planet Earth. Once, she just noted that she wanted to be cremated. Besides this, she told nothing about her death, and nobody knew what she wanted - we did not dare to ask directly, and she kept away from the topic - it was very painful for her, she refused to believe and accept that it was almost over.

My dear mother,

Today, on the 23rd of February, you are celebrating your birthday, and this time, as in the previous year, your Birthday is in a different world, peaceful and calm, beautiful and bright, without pain, suffering, and wars.

I still regret our conversation that never happened, and that despite all the challenges and life’s hardships, we did not dare to speak openly about death, which is an inevitable part of everyone’s life.

One FaceBook fried asked me what helped me to overcome the pain of losing you, as she also lost her mother and still, after half a year, she felt herself there in the hospital with her. I did not have an answer or methodology, as there is no one; it is a unique experience for everyone.

Mom, I think I came through all stages of grieving - denial, anger, bargaining, profound sadness, and acceptance - that is normal. Just when you passed away I began to work with psychotherapist on grieving and loss, then I stopped as I quitted from job, found a new one, was preoccupied with finding a new apartment and moving to a new city - from this year I began fresh cycles of psychotherapy on grieving and loss, and firstly in my life I am radically honest with the therapist.

I mentally forced myself to get out of that picture of the palliative department where you spent almost three months till your last breath, dragging myself away from that room, not allowing myself to remain there after your passing. I am sure you want me to live, and you told me to learn to live with passion and love, and to do so, I need to be in the place here and now, being grateful for my life and not being mentally stuck in the painful past.

Your story taught me that life is short, fragile, uncertain, and unpredictable, and could be finished at any minute. Your passion for life and freedom showed me how to live with lust for life and an unbreakable will to survive. Through this experience, I understood that the meaning of life was very different from what I had thought before.

The meaning of life is not a job. A job reveals our professional potential and helps businesses - and us - to thrive and evolve professionally. The meaning of life is also not our hobby; that is only a way to open more of our creative facets and potential. It is not even our family (wife/husband, child/children); they are people with whom we learn how to communicate, interact, build positive and motivating relationships, and love unconditionally.

The meaning of life lies in life itself: to accept it and move forward, to let go of old patterns and behaviors and be open to the unknown and uncertainty, to embrace failure and vulnerability, to be open to change, to understand that life is made of black and white stripes - of happy days and challenging days. And these black stripes and challenges shape us as human beings, transform us from the inside out, and lead us along a difficult path from a caterpillar to a butterfly. This path is painful, full of suffering and loss, but it is precisely this path that makes us who we truly are and who we were born to be.

Life is not about pleasure and happiness while avoiding dark times and difficult moments. Life is about accepting all of this and integrating it within ourselves, and still feeling happiness and gratitude in the most difficult times - understanding that life is short, and that we need to live it with passion and love.

My dear mother, I am still learning how to do it…. You mastered it during your last years on the Planet because your Soul knew you would fly far away from here very soon....

You know, mom, when somebody says I am very similar to you in appearance, I accept this as a compliment because I believe you were a very beautiful woman, a woman of dignity. Very few people know that I am also very similar to you in your inner vision. Just like you, I am a dreamer, still, despite all of the challenges I faced. The same as you, from early childhood, I created a very special and even unique magical fairy tale world for myself where I escaped from chaos and difficulties in life - this helped both of us to survive all storms in our lives. You adored beauty in everything, and you created it from nothing, and you shared this valuable skill with me. The same as you, I am a believer that everything will be alright and that other human beings, as well as me will become better. Mom, I missed all of those parts of you, and I am afraid that a harsh world will ultimately dissolve them in me, and then I will be completely lost….

While I am trying to accept everything as it is and as it was, to appreciate painful moments of your life during your last months and transfer these negative memories into wisdom, I began finally to remember positive things and moments during those last years of your cancer journey and during all of your life. I would like to remember you not as a weak, extremely thin woman without a possibility to see, hear, or even move, but as a beautiful, full of life and joy, wise, creative, very spiritual, dreamy, and magically talented, with great passion for life, thirst for freedom, and inner belief that everything will be alright. I still cannot forget your screams and tremors, vomiting and nausea, as well as all the medication that killed you while protecting you from cancer, but this experience made me who I am today, and I am very grateful for it.

I miss you and love you, my dear mother.

With love,

Your Yuliia