On Mothering: What I Have Learned as a Bereaved Parent

Written Two Days Before Mother’s Day on May 10, 2024

On Mothering: What I Have Learned as a Bereaved Parent 

May 10, 2023,  Written Two Days Before Mother’s Day

Susan Fusco-Fazio

Mothers

Mothers are great.

They’re great because they care.

They love, hug you, cook, and listen.

Mothers!

Poem by Laura Fazio

Every year around or on Mother's Day I receive a gift from Laura, an express delivery from Heaven. It reaches me at just the right moment, when I need it most. Some would say I am imagining that gifts are being sent to me from my daughter Laura, who passed away 23 years ago just two weeks before mother’s Day. They would be wrong. I do not imagine these gifts. I receive these gifts. I welcome these gifts. These gifts are the signs and symbols of Laura; given to me, to remind me that our love is eternal, that I am still Laura’s mother and that Laura is still my daughter.

Each Mother’s Day is difficult  no matter how many years have passed. Every year I pacify myself with my memories of when Laura was alive, of how excited she became every year around Mother’s Day: when she was very young and when she was a teen. I sit quietly and remember the drawing she made of a bouquet of flowers and handed to me while I was still in bed when she was 5 years old, the poem she wrote called, Mothers, during a poetry unit at school, and the special dinners she helped her Dad prepare for me each year. I can still hear Laura singing the Mother’s Day song she wrote for me and sang to me one Mother’s Day, “Happy Mother’s Day Mother, I went shopping with Father. Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!…” 

I think about the most memorable Mother’s day of all, the one when Laura was 13 years old and she asked her father to drive her to my favorite store, Open Doors. When they got there, Laura claimed her independence and asked her father to wait at the front of the store so she could shop by herself for my gifts. Laura picked out a pair of celestial themed earrings with a moon and a star and a small colored glass candle holder. Laura knew what I liked since she had shopped there with me many times. Afterwards, they went to the florist to pick out flowers for me, lavender ones, her favorite color and what she knew I would love. 

The next day, when Laura gave me her Mother’s Day gifts, Paul took a photo of us hugging, capturing our pure joy. The photo is on display in our family room. I can still feel the love that emanates from that photo. The candle holder is on the piano in the living room and the celestial earrings come out of their box a few times a year,  They all remind me of that beautiful day, with its radiance frozen in time. That was our last Mother’s Day together before Laura died.

On one particular Mother’s Day about 10 years ago, I woke up early and felt deep sadness of missing Laura. The house was too still, too quiet, and too empty, empty of Laura. I thought about how if Laura were here, she would have given me flowers for Mother’s Day.  I could feel that Laura wanted me to have flowers.  I drove to Fruit Center, a store I knew would have fresh flowers. I gazed at the different varieties through the glass window. I spotted a bouquet of daisies with a red rose in the middle. They were perfect. I decided that this bouquet would be my gift from Laura on Mother’s Day. I took the flowers home and tenderly arranged them in a red glass vase.

I had an idea. I would paint the flowers that Laura directed and guided me to buy. It was a warm sunny day, so I took the flowers outside to a table on the deck. I went back into the kitchen to find a few objects that were symbolic of Laura; an avocado (she loved those), a mango and tomatoes on the vine (she loved those too). I went into the linen drawer and picked out a light green tablecloth, a blue napkin and a pink ribbon, then spotted a decorative sunflower plate and scooped that up too. Out to the deck I went with my supplies to set up a Mother’s Day still life.

I placed down the table cloth and played around with different arrangements of the napkin, fruit, and the plates. I decided to go back into the kitchen to get a solid yellow plate. I placed the two plates upside down with the mango on one and the avocado on the other. I tied the pink ribbon around the red vase and put it in the center of the table. I laughed about the pink ribbon. It looked silly, but offered a bit of flair to my set up. The whole scene was playful, colorful and fun, just the way Laura was. It made me happy.  Finally, I gathered up my oil paints, brushes, a square canvas and an easel. I worked quickly and with ease, allowing the colors to flow with rapid gestural brush strokes, while capturing the upbeat playfulness of the scene and the joy and love Laura and I felt for one another. I could feel Laura with me. I imagined her watching the painting come to life while we spent spiritual alone time together. I finished the painting in less than three hours in a flurry of creativity. I named the painting, Mother’s Day flowers from Laura.

Today, I woke up and noticed a new bloom on my hibiscus plant. The brilliant red flower greeted me when I started my morning yoga routine. I thanked the hibiscus for blooming for me. Yes, I believe the flower bloomed just for me. 

Then I spotted a bud, and knew that it would bloom on Mother’s Day. Two blooms, one for Laura and one for me. A sign of our love, a symbol that neither time or space, nor death or distance can stand in the way of our love. I decided that this blooming hibiscus will be this year's Mother’s Day gift to me from my daughter.  

Why the hibiscus, you may be wondering?

There is history to my relationship with the hibiscus. After Laura died, we’ve always had a red hibiscus plant. We have had three hibiscus, but only one at a time. Each hibiscus plant lived indoors in winter and went outside to the porch, deck, or yard in the summer. My hibiscus plants have been known to bloom at seminal times; on Christmas, Laura’s birthday, my birthday, Paul’s birthday, on Mother’s Day, and on Father’s Day. 

However our hibiscus history has not always been so blooming. More than once my hibiscus plants have been wrought with white fly and have needed to be quarantined away from the other plants and tended to and treated with detergent spray. Sometimes my tending worked. One time my efforts could not bring my hibiscus back to health no matter how much I tended to it. This hibiscus plant had been with us for several years and had grown into a tree. All of its leaves were now falling off and new buds would not grow. The bark was dry, but I kept watering it, hoping it would come back to life. I was unwilling to give up on it. I thought that maybe I was trying too hard to save a plant that was beyond saving. Paul and I talked about throwing the hibiscus out. How could we? I couldn’t bear it. I had an idea. “Let’s put the tree outside in the backyard and just let it be. Nature will heal it or it will not,” I said. 

Months later, we noticed signs of life on the hibiscus. Leaves had begun to grow and the tree eventually bloomed. The hibiscus seemed to thrive with our neglect. Once we let go of trying to save it, the hibiscus restored itself to health. When we moved to a new house, the hibiscus tree had grown so large that it had to be moved by a professional moving truck along with the furniture. We placed the tree in the back yard of our new home that first summer. I painted a picture of the hibiscus with two pots of sunflowers in front of it. Eventually the hibiscus got sick again and died a final death. Nothing could save it, and we had to let it go.  

My newest red hibiscus plant has bloomed like crazy over the past few years. I painted it with watercolors this summer. When I took it indoors for the winter it started to wilt and dwindle. Leaves turned yellow, dropped off and blooms lay dormant, though no white fly. I tended to the plant. I tried watering less, then watering more. By late winter, the hibiscus was bare, mostly just branches. I got the idea that it might need a change of location. I moved it to a different window, one with afternoon sun instead of morning sun. Within a few weeks its leaves grew back, and it was happy, healthy, and blooming. It bloomed for me today, just days before Mother’s Day.

You may be wondering why I am telling you this story. 

After I saw this morning's bloom, it came to me that mothering takes many forms. When we have no living children to tend to, we can tend to plants, to paintings, to anyone or anything else that requires the consistent caring attention of mothering.  After all, what is mothering if it is not caring for someone or something. 

At times we will be blessed with blooms, delighted and awed. At other times we may need to back off from tending and caring to allow independent growth. Mothering and tending does not ensure that you can save the life of who you love or of what you love. Mothering is in tending and in caring. Mothering is love in action.

I will always be deeply sad that my daughter is not here with me. No amount of time and years will ever change this feeling inside of me.  I am still a mother and I can still mother Laura, differently now. Laura can still be my daughter and send signs of her love through nature and in other magical and surprising ways. I can still actively love and tend to Laura through my writing, through my art, and through my projects. I can connect with Laura’s spirit and listen to and notice signs and symbols she sends to me, like in the sudden appearance of a red hibiscus bloom just two days before Mother's Day. 

Without Laura here to mother directly, I can mother any living person or thing that I choose to mother and tend to and care about: my husband, my 91 year old mother, my family members, my friends, my students, my pets, co-workers, neighbors, and my plants. I can also tend to artists and writers that I connect with in my community.

Whether we have living children to mother or not, we can still be mothers, as long as we are mothering. I will always be a mother because I am always mothering.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Mothering : relating to or characteristic of a mother, especially in being caring, protective, and kind."your maternal, natural mothering instincts will kick in” 

Definition from Oxford