The end is the beginning - somehow.

Today is my mother's birthday. And it begins this weird period of time I live through each year. I've tried ignoring it. But its there. No matter what. Today begins the series of events that ultimately culminate in the anniversary of my mother's death in April. And since having a daughter, it has this new weird twist on it - a new "angle," shall we say. A strange bifurcation of an experience that is outside and inside me all at once.

I remember telling my doula - when I initially interviewed her - that finding the right person to share the experience of birth with me was paramount. She tilted her head and asked, "Why is that - apart from the obvious reasons?" I replied, "Because I am having a daughter. And this will give me the opportunity to heal, to close some sort of circle." I didn't really understand what I was saying. It kind of just came out. But it was true. And I still believe that Nico picked Bob and I (more Buddhist thought) for this exact reason.

My mother died when I was six - almost seven. What my life became after that is a whole different story, but it colored ALL of my experience, decisions...everything. I don't think people recover very well or gracefully from such losses as adults. Children are different. They adapt. And I did. But my father struggled, despite being re-married. My step-mother did what she could. The only saving grace was my step-sister, who is the other half of my soul to this day. My mother was 26 when she died. I have far out lived her. I have tried over the years to assess the "facts" that I was told. I have struggled not to pass judgment on the decisions my grandmother made regarding her life support. I have really tried to put myself in her shoes and understand why she buried her - despite my mother's horrific fear of being buried alive. I have tried to understand the decisions my father and step-mother made. I don't come up with answers, though.

This year, like so many others, I struggle with the consuming memories of my room before she died. With the house we lived in before my parents divorced.  Until April 9th, when the spell ends (when her life support was turned off), I am awash in a six-year-old world of remembered smells, lost comforts, and voices long gone. I hate it.

But the flip side of the torment is I now know her point of view. A part of her knew she was leaving her daughter to be raised by a woman she hated. By a man she didn't respect. And that knowledge is worse than all the memories of her loss put together. This mom-thing is more powerful than anything I could have suspected. Having Nico did close a circle, I just haven't figured out how.

Since having her, there is one thing that is consistent with this time of year: I pull out pictures of Nico's sonograms. I don't why. Something about my mother's loss and my child's beginning are related. Call it some cheesy, 2001 thing. There is no denying that Nico picked Bob and I for specific reasons. And the child in me will be soothed and comforted somehow by Nico's force of life. I know it in my gut. One year, in the future, February 20th won't have the power it has now. And I have the patience to wait.