Saying goodbye to my mom

Losing a parent is hard no matter what age you are or what kind of relationship you had. This past year has been a rollercoaster of emotions and changes for my family. It’s been a challenging and stressful time. And now, as we get closer to the start of a new year, life has taken a new path for me—one without my mom, who passed away last month.

My mom was my biggest fan

My mother supported anything and everything I did throughout my life – other than staying out past my curfew when I was a teen.

My mom’s life was a sheltered one. As a first-generation Canadian, her world was limited to her faith community and Western European immigrant neighbourhood. Her parents worked hard to make a Canadian life and had strict expectations of their children.

Despite limited means, by the time my mom (the youngest of three) was in middle school, there was enough to indulge her dream of taking piano lessons. She was a committed student, practiced hard and achieved her performer’s diploma (ARTC) the year before she married. She wanted to go to university to become a teacher, but with a fiancé in the wings, my grandfather declared there was no reason to continue school. So, that was that. She focused on being a wife and mother. She later worked outside of our home as an administrative assistant.

Her children, on the other hand, had every opportunity. My mom gave us a solid foundation of love and caring that allowed us to have a stable, secure life. My siblings and I were involved in many extracurricular activities and could pursue whatever educational goals we desired. My mom was very proud of each and every accomplishment. For better and for worse, she came to live life through us.

Not a traveller

Even though my grandfather worked for CN Rail, which meant free family train travel, my mom only took advantage of that once on a trip to visit cousins in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The only other cities she visited were Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton, and Minneapolis. The Minneapolis trip was on her honeymoon. On that visit, she and my dad had the culinary adventure of tasting pizza for the first time. They were unimpressed and couldn’t see the appeal of my all-time favourite food. Oh well, as German-Canadian 20-somethings, a meal without meat and potatoes was bound to seem odd.

I think my mom would have liked to travel, but my father was in business, worked long hours and never took time off. Travelling solo was not an option during her time, and we didn’t have a lot of disposable income anyway. I do know that an unfulfilled dream of hers was to visit Mozart’s birthplace city of Salzburg.

Mom marvelled at how much travel Steve and I do, and she thought I was very brave to go on solo trips. She worried about how much time I spent apart from Steve before I started going with him on his business travel. Yet, when I did tag along, it was hard on her. As the only one of her kids living in Winnipeg, she became very dependent on me in her later years. I made lots of Skype calls to her when away, and almost every one included reassuring her that I was not spending a fortune on long-distance charges. She always expressed relief at my safe return home.

My first blog subscriber

Although new technology intimidated her, my mom did come to embrace the Internet about six years ago. She loved keeping up with family on email and Facebook, and she read every TagAlongTravel blog post I ever wrote. She was always ready to look at photos from my latest trip and hear about our various adventures.

A new chapter

This past year and a half, my mom’s health problems meant I needed to stay close to home. I managed to squeeze in a few short trips but stayed in North America other than one trip to the Netherlands while my sister was visiting Winnipeg. Tagging along has not been the carefree experience it had been. I always felt the underlying stress and guilt of not being close by for my mom. I worried about how long it would take me to fly home should something happen. Yet being apart from Steve for long stretches was difficult too. I always felt torn.

Over the past several months, my TagAlongTravel blog became less of a priority while I focused a lot of my time on my mom and on keeping my public relations practice going. Now, suddenly, I’m free to join Steve as often as I want. That freedom hasn’t sunk in yet. Neither has my mom’s absence. I know the grieving process takes time.

Death’s virtue is its ability to motivate the living to maximize the time we have on this big blue marble. For me, that means seeing and experiencing as much of this planet as possible. Soon, Steve and I will sit down to plot out our travel plans for the coming year. Even though she won’t be around to hear about our adventures, I’ll be experiencing our trips with my mom in mind. I’ll be thanking her for the opportunities she gave me that have allowed me to be in a position to explore the world – to see the many things she didn’t have the chance to. Perhaps I’ll make that trip to Salzburg for her.

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