Questions I Wish I'd Asked Mom

I am 37 and am on year 10 without my mom. I have the joy of being one myself now but the sadness of her not being here and missing all of the joy just tears me apart. Most of the time I don't think about it except in passing but on a day like today it really stings. It takes something away from my day as a mom and I am not sure how to get beyond that. My three year old is real smart though and loves going to the cemetary with me and to church to light a candle for grandma in heaven. She actually tries to be my rock when I am down and I know that this isn't fair to her. I keep saying it will get easier with time and it has just not fast enough for me...

I lost my mom on September 17 to non-alcoholic cirrhosis. I was afraid to ask her how she was feeling about dying, but I do wish I had. In part, I didn't want to dwell on it with her, because she was so full of life and wanted to live what life she had left to the fullest. We just didn't realize that when she went into the hospital with a minor infection (which they managed to clear up!) that she was going to die. I still can't believe that it's true. And I miss her so. I never realized how hard this would be.

Thanks so much for sharing a photo with your mom! That's beautiful. My mom passed away right before Mother's day last year. I just hated all the cards and completely identified with you. This year I don't really know how it will be. Feelings are like the weather, they keep coming up and then blowing over - I never know what's next regardless of the forecast. Thanks again for your post!

My Mother died of ovarian cancer in 1994. WE spend many years rasinign young children anc caring in home for elders. I too, dislike the display of Mothers Day cards. I graciously recieve them from my own children, but they bring me to tears in stores and I avoid them like the plague. You don't really appreciate your Mother until she is gone. Before my mother died, I had the opportunity to have those frank discsssions with her about pain and her end of life wishes. She was a strong snd determined woman and died as she wished. I wish I could have learned more about her as a young woman,: what her life was before she married - who she first fell in love with I also wish I could just talk to her about my own trocky road - good and bad - as a Mom to two teenage girls. As we approach this Mothers Day we are once again battling cancer; my oldest sister is at this moment determining if she wants to discontinue chemo. My next task is determining how we can juggle out of town care and hospice....... So Happy Mothers Day to us all - life just keeps on coming.... and we can just do our best to carry on as our Mom's taught us.

This will be the second Mother's Day without my mother, and I can't even look at cards for my mother-in-law. It still fills like an open seeping wound. She had stage 4C ovarian cancer, we only had one long dificult year before she passsed away. My mother and I were VERY close. I was able to ask some questions and she was happy to share with me but I did dance around some of the really hard questions because I didn't want her upset and selfishly I didn't want to upset myself. I too get upset when I hear about other people fighting with their mother because time Is indeed short. I so wish that I had this website 3 years ago......

I don't think there are many questions I would have asked, but I sure wish I would have told her that we "kids" would be alright. Like feldman, I too, cringe when I hear my friends talk about fighting with their moms. Someone asked me today if I was loking forward to Mother's Day and I said that I was not because I just lost my mother six months ago. Well she said that she lost her mother at the age of 5, and I should be grateful that I had mine for as long as I did. After that I realized that I am grateful to have had my mother for 37 yrs., but I'm still not looking forward to my first Mother's Day without her.

I stumbled across this article on my mom's anniversary, of all days! She had metastatic breast cancer in her early 40's and died at 57, so her death was not sudden, and we did have the opportunity to ask her some of those questions. I got my favorite family recipes and had her tell me who was in many of the pictures (and the stories behind them). I also read Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's book "On Death and Dying" and that helped me to understand what she was going through, and what we, as her family, were going through. One thing I am very thankful for is that we did have a chance to talk a few days before she passed away. She said she was tired and tired of fighting. I told her that it was ok to stop any time she was ready to. I learned a lot through her illness, the most important lesson being to take the time to enjoy each other! I cringe when my friends talk about fighting with their mothers. I am thankful that in my last conversations with her, I was able to tell her how much I love her.

I agree that the recipes are important, I didn't get them and my kids always want the things grandma cooked. The photos too are important there are so many with out dates and names. Also stopping at that antique store or book store, or whatever. Afternoon coffee,just a few minutes here and there, or a weekend shopping trip, and just go when she asks, no matter where it is or how inconvenient it seems at the time. I lost my mom from cardiac arrest 10 years ago, she was 52. It was sudden and unexpected, and there is so much I wish for.DO OVER!! Don't regret what you might have done or said.

You're very right. This is a useful list we're compiling of Things to Do While You Can...collect recipes, get the names of all those ancestors & relatives in the fotos, ask advice, record the childhood stories...

Paula, I don't think we mean to take things for granted, but we do. We all get wrapped up in the business of living. My mother was the first person to encourage me to branch upward and outward. The focus moved from education to careers, from our own family to that wonderful extended, blended family we create over time. It all gets woven into a fabulous pattern we call life. Unfortunately, I don't think we stop enough to smell the flowers, collect the recipes or ask those important questions until it is near the end or too late.

Just yesterday, I received an email from my 30-year-old son asking me for a German pancake recipe that had been his great grandmother's. I pulled it out of my recipe book. It was on a sheet of paper that my mother had written it out on. And now it's on his computer to continue the chain. My mother is still alive and very active and we have encouraged her to start a recipe file of her favorites. This is nice both for her and us.

Thanks for your feedback. Yes, there are the questions I wish I'd asked to make her last days different for her, and then there are the questions for info. Recipe questions are a great example. I don't know how to make any of the traditional foods my grandmother did, for example--but as with sewing and my mom, neither of them ever made a point of trying to teach me, and I never asked them to show me. Which begs the question why we don't bother to ask such things -- because it doesn't seem important? Because we take it for granted? No time?

The first Thanksgiving I tried to make a traditional family dish, and couldn't remember all the ingredients, then realized...I couldn't just call Mom. She was gone. That is when it hit me that there were so many unanswered questions, least of all ingredient lists, Yes, I wish I would have focused that last year on her, not the family and our needs. I don't know much about her childhood, or her passions. She seemed to meld into this mother/leader/organizer/financial wizard being that never fully fleshed out like my best friends do. I, like most kids, tuned out during the long conversations most times, until you noticed, they were too tired to even talk. I have often said that I would shave off ten years at the end of my life for just ten minutes of conversation with my mom and dad; just one afternoon of nothing, but conversations.

I know those questions you mean and the pain when your mother is gone. I think I could have sat for months and asked questions and I'd still have these lingering ones today. Yes, please do ask your parents the important things now--who should get what, who are these people in the pictures, favorite stories and memories, etc. Ask them, too, if they were your age and could do something over again or what their advice would be. We bristle at our parents "nagging", but I wish I had my mom and dad here now to help me through.

Beautiful article. Thank you for this. I will ask my mother these questions while she is still alive.