Dear Mom e-Letter
Remembering, Celebrating, Healing

Volume 1, Issue 4
Goodbye Mommy
January 30, 2006

Dear Reader,

I had another e-letter ready to send to you. It was to be Issue 4 in the series. It was even a fairly decent piece of writing. Then I watched Grey’s Anatomy.

Grey’s Anatomy is one of my favorite TV shows. I can’t explain it….but I watch it every week. (Now you know what my TV habits are.) The show has some interesting characters—surgical interns at a hospital in Seattle—who are dealing with a mother’s Alzheimer’s, relationships with other doctors and patients.

In tonight’s show, Dr. Meredith Grey resuscitated an older female patient because she didn’t know the orders existed for DNR (Do Not Resuscitate.) The woman’s friends fought for her right to die, and doctors asked the woman’s daughter to come to the hospital to give permission to remove life support. The daughter and the friends were in the room when Dr. Gray gave the woman a sedative and prepared to remove her life support.

At that moment, knowing her mother was about to die, the daughter said, “No, wait…” and she leaned over, kissed her mother, and said, “Goodbye Mommy.”

I sobbed. I’m 49 years old, my mother has been gone for more than 15 years, and I still cry at scenes like that.

Does that make me an emotionally unbalanced person? Or just a daughter who never got to say goodbye to her mom?

How would I, Dee Dee Raap, have said goodbye to my mom? I ask that, knowing I hate to say goodbye. To anyone. Daughters going to college. Grandson moving to Idaho. Dog dying of cancer. Friends left behind when I move.

Saying goodbye is something I avoid with great finesse. But being robbed of the chance to say goodbye to Mom always made her death seem just so much harder.

Then I wrote and published Dear Mom: Remembering, Celebrating, Healing. In that process, I have met many women who have lost their moms. At a recent book signing I met one woman whose mother died suddenly at age 97. I met another who lost her mom five years ago. One lost her mom just last fall. And another lost her mom many years ago.

It seems to not matter when or at what age your mother dies. It seems missing your mom is no respecter of age. The relationship is so important, it’s so meaningful, it’s so necessary, that without it, we sorely miss the one who gave us life and nurtured us.

We miss our moms.

Perhaps it’s how we pay tribute to women who become mothers, aunts, grandmothers or “moms” of other people’s kids. We honor those who bother to love their own kids and others because they made a difference. They loved, guided and taught us things that matter.

Our tears are wet tributes that lead us to remember, to celebrate, and to say thanks. And sometimes, when the setting is right, even on a TV show, we hear or see something that reminds us how much we miss them because they made a difference.

I still cry, 15 years later. And I’m lifted up by all the women who come to my book signings and share their tears. I know I’m not alone in saying "Goodbye Mom." Thank you.

And if you’re still crying, remember you’re not alone. Your tears are shared by the rest of us. When the tears are gone, smile as you remember and celebrate the mom who made a big difference in your life. In the process, you'll heal.  And you might even feel like you got a hug from your mommy.

Dee Dee