A Mother's Day Without Mom

 This weekend — for the first time in my life — I’ll spend Mother’s Day without Mom.

For most of my adult life I lived too far away for a trip home for Mother’s Day to be…practical. Not that I didn’t look for — and find — ways to connect with her during the year. But in my heart, Mother’s Day called for a special level of acknowledgement. That said, there’s an emptiness this year where that phone call should be. No need to time it around church or Sunday lunch — or the other calls she’d get.

Since her passing last December, these past months have been…rough. My siblings and I have, at various times, made trips to go through Mom’s house — she was a “gatherer” of family mementos across generations — much of which might, in other eyes, be characterized as “junk.” And yet, in going through the multitudinous boxes of photos and “stuff,” the elementary school awards (and grade cards), not to mention the cards and letters — so many letters — that we wrote to her over the years before things like Facetime, texts and emails took their place (Mom also printed a bunch of the emails) - it's provided lots of opportunities to remember and reflect. 

She was conscious of how many of her friends had, over the years, taken a bad fall from which they never quite recovered. Ironically, despite her caution, that was ultimately the event that led to her passing. I’ve noted before how — above pretty much everything else — Mom didn’t want to be a burden to her family. Not just on the financial front — though she’d been remarkably prescient in her preparations there. Somehow, miraculously, and even through COVID, a pacemaker and a heart valve, she managed to retain her independence. 

Indeed, generally speaking, women face many more challenges regarding retirement preparation than men. They live longer (and thus are likely to have longer retirements to fund), tend to have less saved for retirement (a result of lower incomes, as well as more workforce interruptions, both when children are young, and as their parents age). In addition to longer retirements, those longer lives mean that they are also more likely to have to fund what can be the catastrophic financial burden of long-term care expenses.  And then, among the unexpected expenses in retirement — as parents all know, are those related to your kids — because, even after they leave home and have kids (and expenses) of their own — they’re still your kids.

Sadly, because we know how much difference it can make in retirement savings, women are less likely to work for an employer that offers a retirement plan at work — to be part-time workers, and thus, less likely to be eligible to participate in those plans even when they do have access.

Oh, and like my mother, they tend to outlive their spouses — often by far more than the relatively modest variance in average life expectancy tables suggest. Mom lived on her own for nearly two decades without my Dad. So many times over the past several months she told me how she never thought she’d spend so many years… alone. 

So, if you’ve still got your mom with you this Mother’s Day, don’t wait. Don’t assume there’s time. Send the card. Make the call. Take the picture. Make the trip. Not just because you’ll want the memory someday — but because she deserves it now. And you’ll treasure it one day.

And if, like me, this year finds you standing in the soft ache of absence — know this: a mother’s love doesn’t leave. It lingers. It lives on in the habits she passed down, the values she taught, and in the many quiet ways she shaped the world around her — and you.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. I miss you.

- Nevin E. Adams, JD