Edgy Mama

I’ve been thinking a lot about a woman named Melissa who died a week and a half ago. I didn’t know Melissa well, but she was one of the first people we met when Enviro-spouse and I moved to Asheville 10 years ago.

At that time, we were all child-free, and Melissa was part of a group working to bring some young adult vitality to our Unitarian Universalist church.

She was one of those acquaintances whom I’ve always enjoyed talking with, although we never were close friends or sought out each other’s company. Her death would have been merely a sad blip in my life, except that I have become friends with Melissa’s husband, JA, over the years, partly because he’s an avid reader and commenter here on the blog.

I bonded with JA several years ago when our families attended Family Camp at the UU Retreat Center. I quickly recognized a fellow member of the Cynical Smarty-Pants Club.

So, I’ve been thinking a lot about Melissa over the past few months because it’s horrible, horrible when anyone suffers from killing cancer, but when it’s a mother of young children, it’s just effing heartbreaking. Melissa was two years younger than I am, and in addition to JA, left behind a 6-year-old son, a 2-year-old son, and a pre-adolescent stepdaughter.

I have one particularly vivid memory of Melissa from Family Camp—a memory that has flashed through my mind many times over the past years, even before I learned she was ill.

Much of FC was a nightmare for me, mostly because we were having some behavioral and sleep issues with our 3-year-old girl. Also, our boy was still a baby and a night nursing machine. I was irritable, sleep-deprived, hormonal, and convinced I sucked at parenting.

Discovering that Melissa, JA and their firstborn were at FC was a bright spot in an otherwise dismal experience.

I remember sitting on the deck outside the dining hall, drinking a beer, enjoying the view, and talking to Melissa about our boys. I remember laughing when she said something silly. Silly seemed in short supply in my life at that time.

But the moment that most sticks in my mind was when W, their baby, somehow bumped his head. He was in a stroller at the time, so I’m not sure how it happened. My guess is that JA ran him into the underside of a table or something. Melissa was clearly distressed, but she reacted calmly. She bent over her baby and gave him numerous soft tiny kisses on his forehead. She kissed him and kissed him until he stopped crying. I remember thinking then that Melissa was an uber-mom, someone who, regardless of everything else she was, was meant for motherhood.

This intimate moment between mother and child touched me. Melissa’s love for her baby was so intense that it was almost felt intrusive to watch her with him. Yet, I knew exactly how she felt as she blessed his tiny head with her kisses. Feeling her love for her baby helped me remember the joy of loving my own children.

I can’t imagine the pain and the courage that it took for Melissa to let go of life, as she was forced to do, and to leave her children. That’s what haunts me now. Imagining how she felt, knowing that she was dying, knowing that she wouldn’t be there for so much of her boys’ lives.

We’re all dying; just some of us are dying faster than others. And some of us learn what it feels like to have to say good-bye, while trusting that the love we’ve given and received will be enough to last beyond our corporeality.

Go in peace, Melissa.