Giraffes and letters keep connection to Mom strong

I don’t know what to do about the first anniversary of Mom’s death.

Some occasions are obvious. Her birthday was celebrated at her favorite supper club in Madison, Wisconsin, with family and friends. I honored her Christmas traditions by purchasing an ornament for each of my children, drinking eggnog out of Santa mugs.

But what about today, the anniversary of the day she died? Do I honor that, or do I fruitlessly attempt to ignore it?

The best thing I could think of was to write. I started writing in mid-January after crying in the shower. The shower – as well as in the car to and from work, after dropping off or before picking up my children, and the single-stall bathrooms on the first floor of The Spokesman-Review – is a crying spot. I don’t want my boys to hear and worry more than they already do.

I thought, “What to do about Feb. 2?” in the shower. Feb. 2 isn’t just a year since Mom died. Feb. 2 means the days leading up to her death spent in a hospital in Madison.

Once I dried off, I wrote a few sentences in the Notes app on my phone, dressed and readied my children for a Target run. We needed batteries and were going to attempt to procure sleds. This was the Sunday of the big snow. There were no sleds, but we purchased odds and ends we had not intended: Dog ice cream, meal planning Tupperware, Lego sets, mochi, a kettle ball, etc.

At a red light on the drive home, I noticed a truck.

In the middle of a snowstorm, its bed held an unsecured load of random items: fake flowers, Christmas tree branches, a woven basket with a cloth lining, a stuffed giraffe.

Giraffes were her favorite animal – because they were tall and graceful, and she was not – and I long ago gave into the fact that whenever I see them, she is checking on me.

Mom appears with uncanny timing. When my family entered the supper club in Madison, “Wheel of Fortune” – which she loved – was on the television panning to a prize vacation in Africa featuring video of a giraffe munching leaves. A man standing near the bathrooms in the back was holding a “Happy Birthday” balloon.

I worry about writing about her. Doing so feels equal parts necessity and betrayal. Am I revealing a secret, is she best left in a place where I can’t get her wrong? My only solace is Mom pushed me to write.

I believe writing in all of its iterations is a conversation between the writer and the reader. I’ve written about Mom for this paper before, and many of you have reached out because you lost someone close. I received heartbreaking emails and voicemails from people who had just lost that person, from people who have been living with that loss for decades.

Even though this correspondence makes me sad, I love hearing from you. I think there’s something about a heart breaking in a new way that provides an opportunity for it to mend in a new way.

Today I will watch the Super Bowl with friends. Mom was a sports fanatic, especially when it came to the Chicago Bears, so she would have been thrilled the Packers didn’t make it. My guess is she would have been rooting for the Chiefs, so they have my vote, as well.

Other than that, I don’t have a real plan for today, but when I wake up, I will grab the newspaper from my front porch, remove its plastic sheath and unfurl it on my kitchen table. See what it looks like in morning light next to a cup of coffee.

But also, I kind of hope she reads it. I might lose credibility with a lot of you by saying that. So be it. When I posted my last story about her to my Facebook account, I said, “All I do is write love letters to my mom.”

When I write about her, I visualize rolling up the paper, pinching it into a bottle and letting it loose in the sea. I imagine a shore far away where the bottle washes up and she sees it glinting in the foam and shells.

I was not the daughter she deserved, but I’m hoping desperately I can make up for it now. Part of that is letting you glimpse into that small hospital room to see my shame.

This was, and still is, my brother’s hospital. T.J. is a doctor, and Mom moved to Madison from Milwaukee so she could receive treatment from his colleagues.

Before we got to the room, he warned me. Mom was hooked up to a breathing tube. He couldn’t prepare me, just told me it was going to be tough to see her like that.

T.J. walked in, and I followed, hesitant, like a child being introduced to a parent’s friend, hiding behind knees, exploring interstices.

He tapped Mom on the shoulder and said, “Meg is here.”

A tear rolled down her cheek. She nodded her head.

When I’m crying in the shower, on this occasion and most others, I think about that moment. The tear, the nod. I am devastated that there was some part of her that feared I wouldn’t make it in time.

Mom died while the Midwest was dealing with the polar vortex. Radios and televisions informed people how many minutes they could safely remain outside. I was chilled to the bone in the transport from the insulated garage of the hospital to the insulated garage of my brother’s apartment complex.

The weather was right. Mom had to have a dramatic exit. The polar vortex was her take on a fissure in the sky. And it was revealing: People were advised not to travel, and yet sure enough friends and family came to say goodbye, even though she directed T.J. to email them on her iPad telling them not to risk it. Mom was worth risking it.

If her leaving was marked like this, there must be something I should do to note the audacity of the Earth making a loop without her. I somehow survived a loop without her.

This is a message in a bottle. If it reaches your shore, I hope it finds you well. The message is this: Mom, I will never stop writing you love letters.

As I finish this sentence, church bells mark 9 p.m. Funny how time moves whether we like it or not. Donna Dhein has been gone for a year.