August 31, 2026

Today was another really hard day in the land of I miss my mom.

It’s around 3:30 in the afternoon, and my first thought was that I should call Mom and tell her about my day.

I used to get off work at 3:30. Almost every day, I’d call her and tell her about whatever happened. Sometimes it was something important. Sometimes it was something completely stupid that didn’t matter at all. Sometimes I just needed to bitch about something.

And now I can’t.

That realization hit me like a fucking truck today.

It’s such a small thing, but it’s one of the things I miss the most. The automatic reaching for my phone. The expectation that she’d answer. Knowing that there was someone on the other end who was going to listen to me talk about my day, even if she was annoyed that I was calling to complain about something ridiculous.

I don’t think you realize how many little routines you share with someone until they’re gone.

I managed to eat breakfast today.

Lunch was a total failure.

I’m not hungry.

I miss my mom.

Apparently those two things are connected more often than I’d like to admit.

We Were Complicated

I’ve talked a lot about how much I loved my mom, but I don’t want to pretend our relationship was perfect.

It wasn’t.

Mom had narcissistic personality disorder, and we butted heads. A lot.

Everyone else seemed to love her. She could be incredibly charming and funny, and people were drawn to her. But Mom and I had a complicated relationship. We fought. We disagreed. We could get under each other’s skin like nobody else could.

And yet, somehow, she was still my best friend.

Our relationship didn’t look like a traditional mother-daughter relationship. It was messy. It was complicated. Sometimes it was incredibly difficult.

But the bond was there.

She hated when I called her just to bitch about something stupid, but she’d still listen.

And if I didn’t call her that day?

She’d call me.

Usually to make sure I was still alive.

Her words, not mine.

Those calls were one of the ways she showed me she loved me.

Mom wasn’t always someone who said I love you.

But I knew.

I knew because if I told her I wasn’t feeling well, she’d call me every hour to check on me.

I knew because she’d get annoyed if I didn’t call.

I knew because even when she was pissed off at me, she still needed to know I was okay.

Love doesn’t always look the way we’re taught it should look.

Sometimes it looks like your mother calling you every hour because you said you weren’t feeling well.

Sometimes it sounds like, “Are you still alive?”

Sometimes it’s two people arguing about something completely ridiculous and then talking again five minutes later.

And sometimes it’s simply knowing.

Then Alzheimer’s Changed Everything

When Mom moved in with me and the Alzheimer’s really started taking over, our relationship changed again.

She started telling me she loved me every single day.

Sometimes she didn’t know who I was.

That was one of the hardest parts.

She could look at me and not know that I was her daughter, but she knew she could trust me.

That meant everything.

And holy shit, did we butt heads with that disease.

There were days when she would bite me, hit me, kick me and call me every name under the sun.

It took me more than a year to really understand that I couldn’t take those things personally.

It wasn’t Mom.

It was the disease.

Once I finally understood that, something changed in me.

I could let it go.

I could get bitten and cry about it later.

I could get screamed at and walk away for a few minutes.

I could be called every horrible name imaginable and remind myself that the woman standing in front of me wasn’t choosing to hurt me.

Alzheimer’s was taking pieces of her away.

And when she was lucid, when she knew who I was, she’d tell me she loved me.

Those moments became everything.

Because I knew the person I was talking to was still in there somewhere.

And now she’s not here at all.

Losing Dad Wasn’t Supposed to Prepare Me for This

I thought losing Dad was going to be the hardest thing I’d ever experience.

I was always Daddy’s little girl.

Losing him shattered me.

But losing Mom hits differently.

Maybe because she was the person I spent the last two years of her life with every single day.

Maybe because I was her caregiver.

Maybe because our relationship was so complicated that there are still things I don’t know how to reconcile.

Maybe because I spent so long taking care of her that I forgot what my life looked like without her needing me.

Or maybe it’s simply because losing your mother is losing your mother.

I don’t know.

I just know it hurts differently.

And now they’re both gone.

My mom.

My dad.

And I’m an only child.

There’s no sibling sitting across from me who remembers the same childhood. No one who gets the same exact version of these people because they experienced them alongside me.

There are people who love me.

There are people who check on me.

There are people I can call.

But there is something uniquely lonely about being the only person left who carries certain memories.

There are stories that only I know.

Little things about Mom that nobody else will remember.

Things Dad said.

Things they did.

The way they were together.

The way they were with me.

Those memories live inside me now.

And sometimes that feels like an incredible gift.

Other times it feels like an enormous fucking responsibility.

Because I’m the keeper of so much of them.

And I don’t know how to carry all of it yet.

I know I’m going to have days like today.

I know there will be days when I reach for my phone before remembering I can’t call her.

There will be days when something happens and my first instinct is to tell Mom.

There will be days when I hear something she would have loved or see something she’d have hated and I’ll instinctively think, I need to tell her this.

And then I’ll remember.

She’s gone.

I fucking hate that.

I hate that I’m learning how to live in a world where calling my mom isn’t an option anymore.

I hate that the person I spent years taking care of is now someone I can only talk to in my memories.

I hate that I have to figure out how to be an only child without either of my parents.

I don’t know how to cope with that yet.

Maybe I don’t have to.

Maybe I just have to keep getting through the days until it becomes something I understand.

For now, I’m going to let today be what it is.

I’m going to miss my mom.

I’m going to miss my dad.

I’m going to be sad that I can’t call her at 3:30 anymore.

And tomorrow I’ll wake up and try again.

That’s all I have right now.

One day at a time.

Even when I fucking hate it.