The Marvelous Ms. Sharon Diane
“Grown don’t mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown? What’s that supposed to mean? In my heart, it don’t mean a thing.”
Toni Morrison ~~ Beloved 1987
This month marks one year since I lost my mom. Today, December 18, 2019, to be exact. And in my heart, it don't mean a thing. It's like she's still here, just a phone call away. But she's not. It's been an entire year since I've heard her voice.
As I have said repeatedly since turning 40, time is a beast. It stalks you steadily, like a lion in the Serengeti. You are aware of it, but you lose sight of it in the long grass as you go about your daily life, and then one day it pounces. You’re 50. You’ve got gray hair. Your glasses are no longer just for reading. Disco naps, periodic fasting, and weekly runs no longer return your waist to its youthful glory. And if you're truly unlucky, you lose your mom.
Time and age bear a striking resemblance to Time and grief.
I cannot believe Sharon Diane has been gone for a year. A year. Unlike my aunt’s keening, unbearable grief, which is shaped by the loss of a big sister and a best friend she saw or spoke to every day.
My grief is different.
Mine is the grief of a daughter.
It is grief wrapped around a fraught, painful relationship with a deep vein of love running through it like fine strands of amethyst within a chunk of quartz.
My mother, my Sharon Diane, my momma. We didn’t speak every day. Sometimes, we didn’t speak for years, but there was a connection born of struggle, hope, dreams deferred, anger, sadness, and love. I wanted the moon and the stars for my mom. She wanted that, too! Sadly, she didn’t get her heart’s desire. And tragically, she wasn’t able to shake her disappointment.
Sharon Diane Porter was a beautiful, funny, smart, kind, resourceful woman who deserved better from the world.
She’s at rest now. No more striving. No more dreams slipping through her fingers. She is at rest. And I am grateful, even as I miss her like a dream just out of reach which lingers with the sweetest pressing on your heart. I miss her like a heady, earthy perfume you catch a whiff of that makes you take a deep breath in appreciation. I miss her like the gorgeous silks, satins, and furs she longed for.
I miss her. I miss her and I say thank you, Universe for the time I had with her. The good times and the bad. I say thank you. I say thank you and I say I love you, my mother, my Sharon Diane, my momma.
You were one of a kind. I couldn’t measure up, but I will always keep trying.
Rest in peace, power, and luxury.
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