Category: grit

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38 Years Without Mom

My mom died of pancreatic cancer in 1983.

I’ve always felt like losing my mom when I was 13 was a punishment. I didn’t understand why something like that would happen. And to be honest, at 13 years old, I didn’t know how to grieve losing my mom.

Then complicated grief arises as I experience different seasons of life without her, or milestones that make me miss her in a new way. Like when I became a mom. That made me realize how much I really missed having that relationship for myself. I didn’t fully understand how much my mom loved me until I became a mom.

With that came putting myself in mom’s shoes, and how she knew she was dying from cancer. How horrific that must have been for her. To know that she was leaving 2 teenage daughters behind. I can’t begin to understand the anguish she must have experienced. Not only did she have to contemplate her own life ending, but she also experienced anticipatory grief – thinking about the effect of her absence on her girls. That’s a heavy burden.

Mother’s Day is bittersweet for me. I am so grateful for my own family and they do an amazing job of honoring me. But I miss my mom. I have a mom-sized hole, which changes in size as life ebbs and flows, but is always there.  I have prolonged grief. It will be 38 years in June. Many people don’t understand how you can still be mourning after 38 years, but I can. And I am.

I briefly mentioned 3 different types of grief in this blog. Complicated, anticipatory and prolonged. There are other types of grief as well. My point in doing this is to bring attention to the many sides of grief. There is no right way to grieve. I don’t believe you get over grief. But we can learn to live with it, and if it’s going to last forever, finding ways to share your journey and stories with others can offer support and validation to what you are feeling.

With Mother’s Day approaching, I’m pleased to share 2 ways that may help:

  1. A free, personalized Mother’s Day postcard. Sign up here by the end of April, and (hopefully) the card will reach you by Mother’s Day.

  2. Virtual Daughters Without Moms Mother’s Day Circle
    Join us to spend an hour together in anticipation of Mother’s Day. We will share stories, pictures and find meaning together as Daughters Without Moms.

Each of the 4 hosts will share on their own personal aspect of being a DWOM. We will then have a short breakout session to foster a time of personal connection.

We will be sharing photos of our moms, creating a DWOM Recipe Book and a DWOM Mother’s Day playlist!

Follow this link to register. It’s free!

If you have any questions or cannot access the registration form, please email me at daughterswithoutmoms@gmail.com.

As I often say, I’m sorry that you are a part of the DWOM Club. But you are not alone.

With love, Beth

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Just a Spoonful of Sugar

Note: This blog is portions of a blog I wrote in 2014. It’s interesting to look back at my thoughts on grief and pain. My beliefs haven’t changed! But I sure do miss having Amy here to share the journey with.

I have a soft spot for girly movies. OK, you’re right, I am a girl! And while I also do love a movie that makes me laugh out loud, every once in a while I like to snuggle up with some tissues and a good tear-jerker!

Surprisingly, Saving Mr. Banks, Disney’s movie about the production of the movie Mary Poppins, turned out to be one of these tear-jerker’s for me. My motivation to watch the movie was my interest in learning more about Walt Disney himself, and I wasn’t expecting to become emotionally involved.

P.L. Travers is the author of Mary Poppins. As Walt Disney attempts to gain the movie rights to the book, you learn of the heart-wrenching loss and trauma Travers experienced as a child. Her father is a fun-loving alcoholic who has a hard time dealing with the real world, and eventually, he dies. This sends Travers’ mother, who already suffered from depression, into a suicidal state. Along the way, Travers’ saves her mother from a suicide attempt.

These experiences resonated with me personally. As a child I experienced the fall-out of my parents’ relationship, resulting in separation and divorce. Then my mom died of pancreatic cancer when I was 13. The similar portrayal of a parent suffering and the experience for the child brought back so many memories.

As an adult, I often reflect back on the grief and pain, and how its impact on my life has changed over the years. I find great comfort in my only sibling, my sister, as my companion in grief. Even though we are only 3 years apart in age, our memories and experiences are so different! I also feel a strong bond with other women who lost their moms at a young age. The loss of a loved one results in a myriad of other emotions tied to the loss – regret, guilt, anger, fear, sadness. They create a sense of loneliness that can only be shared and understood by others who have experienced the same pain.

How your family chooses to grieve loss depends on individual personalities and your family’s culture. Being open, honest, and vulnerable about your feelings can help alleviate the loneliness experienced during these times. Being with others who have experienced the same kind of feelings can also help. They can provide a safe environment for sharing, learning, and growing.

As Mary Poppins says, “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down”, but you may need more than that. Please send me an email if there is a way I can be your grief advocate, offering support on your grief journey. You are not alone!

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The Grief and Shame of 2020


2020 was a year for the books. I don’t think anyone could have predicted the extent of the damage from the pandemic and the political and social unrest.

In Pennsylvania, it began with a 2-week shutdown in mid-March, to flatten the curve. As a family, we prepared for a disruption through May, just to be on the cautious side, with the hopes of being pleasantly surprised if things went back to normal before then.

As it continued, students were not allowed to return to in person classes. Graduations and weddings were cancelled. Businesses were forced to adjust the way they ran their business, or close. Teachers (and parents) had to learn Zoom. The news was terrifying. Persons were hospitalized and unable to have loved ones by their side.

The list of changes and sacrifices goes on, and on, and on. And on.

Every single person in our country experienced loss in 2020. And then, social unrest and political polarization. On top of the mandated stay-at-home orders, we were disconnected physically, emotionally and mentally. Judgment, condemnation and disrespect were rampant. On all sides, all around, in many arenas.

Have we considered the ramifications on 2020 on our culture? On the health of our population?

People are experiencing loss and grief. They don’t have many places to share. When they do, they experience the challenge of comparing their grief and story to the story of others. Because others have stories. Everyone does. And many are hard. Denying the extent of your grief based on your perception of someone else’s grief is unhealthy. We tell ourselves, “Well, I don’t have it as bad as they do, so I should just be thankful/grateful/happy.”

When we deny ourselves the experience of acknowledging our loss, we deny the emotion. When we deny the emotion, we deny the ability to process our reality with compassion and understanding. “I should just be grateful. At least I still have a job. Why am I so ungrateful?” Susan David, PhD and author of Emotional Agility says that “Social comparison is one of the worst toxic psychological experiences we can have as a human being.”

So not only have we suppressed our emotions, we’ve invalidated the situation and are now beating ourselves up. Over and over and over again. Because in 2020, not only are we doing it in our personal lives, with our jobs, our kids and their education, we are doing it over politics. And social issues. Over masks and six feet. Again, and on and on and on. When we deny the process of grieving, we open the door to shame.

This will have a huge impact on our health, and mindset. Because in addition to the shame of the events of 2020, individually, shame is devastating. According to Brenè Brown, “When we experience shame, we feel disconnected and desperate for worthiness. Full of shame or the fear of shame, we are more likely to engage in self-destructive behaviors and to attack or shame others. In fact, shame is related to violence, aggression, depression, addiction, eating disorders and bullying.”

Read that quote again. Perhaps we are already experiencing the ramifications of the grief and shame of 2020.

So what can we do? Again, Brenè Brown, author and shame researcher says “If you put shame in a petri dish, it needs 3 ingredients to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence and judgment. If you put the same amount of shame in the petri dish and douse it with empathy, it can’t survive.”

Empathy, compassion, grace – let’s douse each other with these ingredients in 2021.

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Hard to be Happy

In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. day this week, I’m sharing a blog written in 2018. For the past 7 years, I’ve gone to Mexico in January for a week of service. Not this year. I’m missing that special place and the people there, and when I read the blog, it makes me think about what we use to define “success” in the US. Enjoy!

Again, one of my goals for Personal Development in 2018 is to do some kind of service work. It has been a goal for several years now. I firmly believe there is no better way to keep yourself grounded than by giving to others. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said: “Somewhere along the way, we must learn that there is nothing greater than to do something for others.”

For the first week of 2018, I was privileged to spend the week with 20 other people, including my 16-year-old daughter Anna, on a service trip to Refuge Ranch in Mexico.

This was my fifth year going to Refuge Ranch. I was excited to share the experience with Anna, and knew it would have a profound effect on her as well. She received a writing assignment, and she chose to include thoughts from her trip to Mexico in her paper about happiness. With her permission, I’d like to share a few sections with you.

What is Happiness?

What is happiness? To me, happiness is being content with life in general. It is not about how much money you have, or if you have the most clothes, or if you travel far and wide.

Happiness can also be manipulated. People can choose to be happy with what they have and where they are in life, or they can complain and be upset. Happiness is a personal mindset that every human experiences. There are many things that mean happiness to me. There is happiness in helping other people. Helping other people can cure the soul because the joy it brings to others fills the heart.

I recently spent a week in Tepetlixpa, Mexico. During my week in Mexico, I volunteered at a ranch where we spent our time constructing cement columns for a new house and plastering walls. My week in this place showed me again just how blessed I was and how people who had so much less than me seemed more content.

One of the people I met in Mexico was Cirino. He works for the ranch and is part of the three-man crew that is building the new house. Although we could not communicate very well with him because of language barriers, you could tell Cirino was a content and happy man. He was always smiling and laughed with us when we attempted to talk in Spanish.

Cirino lived in a house down the road from the ranch that was constructed of tarps and walls with dirt floors. Cirino easily could have fixed the dirt floors of his house but he was fulfilled with what he had.

The people in Mexico live a life much different from ours. They do not materialize their lives, they do not base their happiness in money. They do not compare their lives to their neighbor’s. Instead, they live their lives happily. They go to work and do their jobs and go home and see their family and the next day they do it all over again.

My trip to Mexico showed me how simplicity can create happiness. When humans live simply and do not overthink, we can live a happier life. Our society has warped happiness into an unreachable goal. There are people in this world who do not know where their next meal is coming from, or who their real family is.

I challenge whoever is reading this to take a step back and evaluate your life. Do not compare your life to someone else’s. Do not think that materialistic items will bring you joy. Instead, start every day with a smile because every day is a chance to love the life you live, and live the life you love.

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Left Behind

The problem with opening your heart is that you are then also open to hurt.

When we were little, our family was the typical family. Dad, Mom and 2 kids -sisters.

We played, ate, slept, worked – all normal activities.

We moved from New York to Maine when I was 2, and then to Illinois when I was 7. That was hard, but at 7, you adapt.

Then, dad left the next year. Where are you going? Florida? WITHOUT US?

The family unit was broken. Mom and Amy were mad at Dad. There were rumors. But I was 8. He was my dad. I loved him.

Our relationships changed. Mom confided in Amy too much. Amy was her daughter, not her friend. And it made Amy’s relationship with Dad strange. All he wanted to do was talk to her, but she was keeping him at a distance.

After 4 years, another break. Amy and I decided to go live with Dad in Key West. Who wouldn’t? We tried to change our minds at the last minute. Panic and fear set in. No luck, as plans were already made and school registrations were complete. Another move. I would start 7th grade in Key West.

In March, Mom was sick. To see what was going on they performed exploratory surgery. Pancreatic cancer. 6 months to live.

Mom died in June. A big, big break in the family. I was 13. Amy was 16. We were devastated.

Dad remarried and life went on.

In 2010, married and with 2 children, Amy was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. Cancer? Again? Are you kidding me? Turns out, as a secondary cancer, pancreatic cancer is a hereditary cancer. Amy tests positive for the BRCA-2 gene. I do not have it.

In July of 2018, Dad died unexpectedly. They’d been out the day before, and Becky found him in the bathroom in the morning.

Now, it’s just Amy and I. Strange to technically be an orphan at 48.

Amy’s cancer spread aggressively. 2 brain surgeries, CyberKnife on her spine, chemo, lung extractions. After 2 weeks in ICU, she was sent home on hospice in December, 2019. We had an amazing Christmas together. I was with Amy when she took her last breath in the early morning of January 20, 2020.

Now, I’m alone. I’m broken. Love to give and nowhere to go. Why do I keep getting left behind?