Didi

The odds are pretty high you didn’t know my mom. I mean, how could you have? She rarely left the house. Those who did know her though were blessed to meet such a special lady.
For those who didn’t know her, my mom was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina. The middle child of her family, she grew up with three sisters and a younger brother in a household most would define as poor. Even though wealth or status never defined her, I know her upbringing made her who she was.
She met my father, who was serving in the navy at the time, when she was nineteen and married him not long after her twentieth birthday. Michael, my oldest brother, was born after Mom and Dad had only been together a year. After many failed attempts, and another five years, I came along. About a year after me, my youngest brother, Andrew, was born and completed our family.
We were a pretty average family, to me at least. What I did notice was that throughout my childhood, Mom found more and more reasons not to leave the house. It became even more apparent to me once my brothers and I were out of school. It was never clinically diagnosed, but I know she was agoraphobic. Mom instead created her own world right in our home. In her world, she found happiness and comfort far greater than being out in public could ever offer to her. For all the years I can remember, she filled her time at home creating conventional art and everything in between.
Growing up, I was my mom’s shadow. If she was in a chair, I was right next to her. She was my everything. Looking back on my progression to adulthood, I know that she instilled many of the values I hold dearly to my heart. Life was abundant with art, music, and God because I was her daughter.
Like my mom, I was twenty when I got married. When that relationship fell apart seven years later, my mom was there to pick me up after I had fallen and helped take care of my newborn son. She was my rock, and I really couldn’t ever fathom her not being around. I guess you could call it denial on my part. My mom was a heavy smoker, ate whatever made her happy, and rarely went to the doctor. Not exactly the recipe for a long, healthy life.
It amazes me how fast the years came and went. I remarried, gained a stepson, and eventually, had a daughter of my own. My relationship with my mom gradually evolved because she realized I had my own life that demanded me. I still made it a point to visit her every week, but looking back, I wish I could have spent every free moment with her. That’s the funny thing about death. It makes you second-guess all the choices you made, however inconsequential they seem.
When Mom died, it was all I could think about at first. Every moment of every breath reminded me of her. A smell, a song, and of course the memories that would follow. She would look back at me in the mirror when I was putting on my makeup, and she is still the first person I think of when I have good news to share. After almost three months, every day seems to get a little better—perhaps more distant from the harsh reality. I can go for a lot of the day and not think much about missing her—well, until I do. Some days that feels like a ton of bricks on my soul, and other days it feels like a little memory that is nice to visit for a while. Mostly, I sink into both, at different times of the day. People say things will get easier; I just can’t imagine.
Selfishly, this book is therapeutic for me, but that wasn’t my reason for writing it. I never knew about the process involved in having to let someone go whom you love so dearly. It certainly wasn’t obvious to me because it seemed like no one ever talked about it. My hope is that sharing Mom’s story can provide a perspective that you may not have heard before. At the same time, I want to showcase some of the art that was my mom’s passion for all these years. The art she made was far more than I could ever have printed in a single book, but a collection of her last works adorns the pages of this one, along with the story of her final days on this earth.
Welcome to the story of my mom, Didi, as the grandkids called her.