Yesterday was Esther Day, the day Nerdfighters all over the world take time to say “I love you” to friends and family, celebrating platonic love in memory of Esther Earl.

I remembered that.  I was thinking of it days beforehand, making sure I wouldn’t forget to tell my dad and my brother and text all of my best friends that I love them.  This is just to say that I’m usually pretty good at remembering important dates.  But a week ago, I forgot my mother’s birthday.

I only remembered today because I’m reading Letters from Motherless Daughters by Hope Edelman, and she was talking about birthdays being milestones in the grieving process.  One week ago yesterday, on Monday, July 27th, my mom would have turned 50.  The big one.  I can’t believe I forgot.

I know that I’m really good at being in denial.  But I think it’s time to acknowledge that not thinking about Mom is doing myself a huge disservice.  Here I am reading about daughters who think of their mothers every day, who still look to them for advice, who are still struggling with the loss ten, twenty years later.  And here I am after less than two years, struggling to remember the sound of Mom’s voice and crying because I forgot her 50th birthday.  It’s as if I’ve been trying to pretend she never existed.  How awful that sounds.  It’s not the way I feel and it’s not the way I want to be handling this at all.

Reading this book has also had me thinking about memories.  I had a few seconds of panic earlier today.  I was thinking about making a memory scrapbook and was drawing a complete blank on anything to put in it about Mom in my lifetime.  But then memories and ideas and stories came flooding in, and I soon realized that one scrapbook might not be enough to hold it all.

So I think it’s time I stop hiding from my loss, stop putting thoughts of Mom out of my head the second they arrive, start revelling in memories rather than living in denial of the grief that, deep down, is still very real.  Anything less would not only be a disservice to me as I navigate through my now motherless life, but it would be a dishonour to Mom’s legacy.  It’s not going to be easy.  But I really need to stop taking the easy way out.