[Audio version of this essay available on apple & spotify]
For two years, I’ve been horrified at a mental image of a rope gone slack.
No longer taut.
Never again harnessing me to the safe harbor of my mother’s love. That rope, now looping down through the water’s surface, frees the bow of a ship to gradually begin to drift.
“NO!” I want to scream.
Because I did scream.
As the nurse entered her room to announce, “Julie’s heart stopped at 9:54.”
“NO!” I screamed.
A guttural refusal of the truth that what had tethered us together was no more.
I am haunted by the sensation of grasping—of reaching out when she was still close, only to miss. The moment she slipped away, the safest chapter of my life swung closed. My mind spins and shifts in search of a way to make sense of her absence. As if logic will satisfy a son’s broken heart.
Mom’s form of chaotic affection scuffed life’s sickeningly smooth veneer. Her presence pushed us away from the niceties that insidiously separate us each day. How she’d offer a piercing question to pull someone close. Drop an unexpected F-bomb to slightly shake the room. Or offer a soft, loving smile to remind me that, although imperfect, this day was enough. Julie Mancini invigorated our world as if shaking a snow globe. She functioned as a swirl of madness that upset the conventions keeping us from embodying our full selves. Absent her energy, a suffocating stillness settles atop each day.
But of course, that’s not entirely true.
Life moves.
The sun rises.
Days churn.
And this vessel, tether gone slack, has already begun to drift.
The word “unmoored” hung in my mind for over a year as my terrifyingly terse expression of how this beautiful life would never be the same, then someone else used it as well. Unmoored by her own mother’s death, she was also afraid, understandably depressed, and agonizingly apart from her former self. But she was also alright. As a runner, she set a speed record across Oregon in under a week. As a writer, she published a book about it. Reading her use of the same expression pushed me back, provided perspective, and made me wonder: What becomes of a ship unmoored? What fate might unfold for a vessel no longer anchored?
A son must learn to be alright without his Mom.
And I was.
Eventually. That’s what drives me, maybe, most mad: being “alright” in her absence. Because her presence in our lives afforded space to dream, room to believe, and a chance to wonder, “Why not?” Of course, it wasn’t free of critique. She and I clashed, often. Her excited eyes flickered with fandom as well as expectation. A mother’s warmth can only contain so much of a son’s angst — I needed to push back on her assertions, even when well-intended.
“You shithead,” she’d snark, immediately matching my eye with opposition and affection. We conversed as if in a dance, where both parties leaned past their pivot point. We achieved balance through opposing pushback, remaining upright as long as neither of us stepped away.
Her absence leaves me leaning over what feels like an emotional abyss, off kilter and afraid. For years, I struggled to move forward. I walked through days bitter, each one feeling like less than before. But no mother lives forever. Life’s ledger doesn’t afford endless withdrawals.
“What’s your trauma?!” a friend blurted a rhetorical topic into conversation as we sat around her dining room years ago. Tipping and rolling a glass of red wine between her fingers, she tilted her head to the side with a smile, indicating that she was slightly drunk and intent on inquiry. Her question hung as an invitation, and a forewarning that she wasn’t interested in fucking around.
My mind skipped blank.
Blinking rapidly, my breath quickened, and insides spun as I attempted to name something from my life that would qualify. Life isn’t always easy, I suppose, but mine had unfolded fluidly so far. From college acceptance to finding friends, securing a career, and meeting my wife. I attempted to slink back into my chair far enough to disappear. I felt inferior and aimed to escape this group dissection of suffering.
Sadly, I’m ready to speak. Grief isn’t a competition, but on August 29th, 2022, at 9:54 pm, my ship detached from its founding harbor, and I began to drift.
I still see the beauty of her eyes when I close mine. How she peered up toward me, fully aware of what this was. Her body, having been whittled down by chemo, was now the bare essence of her beautiful self. After a lifetime of hiding behind dark, sweeping bangs, her crew cut from cancer allowed the orbs of her knowing eyes to shine directly up into mine. She was slipping from here, she knew it. Her eyelids creased slightly, not in fear exactly, but in acknowledgment that this was what we suspected: our final moment together.
“So that’s it? That’s how this thing ends.” The brutal truth of life’s certain conclusion has hovered over each one of my days since. How I perched at her bedside, fingertips gently clinched into her upper arm, sensing for her pulse as it slowly began to slide.
Cold hospital light creased into the darkness of her patient room as the lead nurse rumbled open the heavy sliding door to announce, “Julie’s heart stopped at 9:54.”
9:54
A moment to mark the passing of time and center my appreciation of how beauty sparks within each day.
A sunrise peeking up amid a morning run – 9:54.
My son’s temper tantrum spiking as I attempt to scratch his back and soothe his anger – 9:54.
Pushing myself into the chorus of a crowd singing along at a show – 9:54.
Three digits to signify my primal awareness that all of this ends in a moment.
A tattoo doesn’t change a thing. They’re as meaningless as an imagination. Yet, while a bit of ink beneath my skin won’t bring her back, it does serve as a petulant son’s insistent scream to the world that he will never be the same. “9:54” inscribed in her handwriting, placed on the same pulse line where I held hers, functions as a reminder for me to appreciate each of my remaining days. And acts as a permissive push. A maternal reminder that no matter how far I roam, the fire with which she burned is also afforded to me, if I’m not too fearful to try.
But I was afraid.
The absence formed by her death left an adoring son terrified to face the world. Two months spent planning her memorial drifted into three and four making sense of her bills and belongings, which filled my days with purpose until the kitchen corners had been swept and her handwritten notes had been filed. Till I looked up from a pile of flattened boxes to realize that half a year had passed in a cloud of depression and confusion.
“I’m reaching out to see…” Nope.
“Just writing to say…” Nah.
“I wanted to get in touch to…” Gross.
Seated as the late morning light traced through my office, I was sipping a second cup of coffee, working up the courage to reignite the consulting career that I’d allowed to spin to a stop. But I couldn’t find the words. Or couldn’t muster the motivation. Unable to catch a breath, I stood up from my keyboard as my mind spun and my heart raced. I couldn’t do this. Or did I not want to?
Didn’t I want to work? I wondered.
Yes. Absolutely.
I was driven to participate and provide for my family. And yet, each time I reached for a corporate expression or professional nicety, my heart rang hollow. Each time I mustered my mind toward productivity, it landed back with her. Staring straight into her relentless gaze. Her tireless commitment to pushing and providing. Mom came from privilege and passed it along to me, yet she continued working until her treatments began.
Sitting at her bedside in her final week, I gently asked how I could help. What might ease her piercing nerve pain and ebb her waves of nausea? A concerned son grasping for solutions. Another drink? A back scratch or foot rub? “Oh no, honey, I’m fine,” she lied gracefully, easing her disappearing torso up onto three pillows. Comfort had long passed, yet she did not complain.
Our conversation drifted, lightly touching on one subject before floating on to another. As if we were both unsure if any topic could bear the weight of our expectation. What does one discuss when your tie to here is threadbare? “He just takes my breath away,” she repeated as I soothed her with stories of my young son. Tiptoeing toward topics of greater gravity, I danced around what her future might hold.
Bracing herself back upright, she pinned her elbow inward to prevent ribs from shifting against tumors. She pulled her slight torso straight as her crinkled white linen top hung gently from her shoulder. A low groan reinforced her effort, yet never a whimper. She was accustomed to discomfort. From a childhood afflicted with polio to a pregnancy resulting in seizures. And now a spine objecting in piercing protest. Her body rarely moved without neurological objection.
Fully upright, her pitch-dark pupils peered up into mine. She began to speak, then paused, summoning strength, as the oblong white orbs shone from her gaunt face.
“I worked…my entire…life.” She punctuated with precision. Pausing as she spoke, as if the gravity of her point was echoing off of me and falling upon her. “I know, Mom,” I struggled to reply. Unclear how a son can assuage his mother that her lifelong effort was valued. That I understood. That she was seen by me and so many. That the term “mentor” barely begins the list of lives spun out with possibility because of her insistence and affection.
Her point was that none of this came free. It was always an effort. How she lived, at the edge of what society deemed acceptable for a female, didn’t come about by coasting. That was days before her eyes last closed. The moment I became untied from my primary anchor, and began to drift.
A year later, I was up late, scrolling, flicking across my phone screen in the darkness of night. Seeking a distraction from the insomnia that had annoyingly emerged in her absence. My thumb settled on a social media square that reeked of cliche. A scholarly-looking middle-aged man propped near an expensive microphone, accustomed to creating viral clips of wisdom. I nearly rolled my eyes, but this time, I paused to click play.
“Every man lives two lives. The second one begins when he realizes that there’s only one,” he repeated an ancient aphorism attributed to Confucius, a Chinese philosopher. The tired truism nearly made me wince, yet slipped into my psyche in a moment when I was too exhausted to swat it back. Could it be that this man was sharing the same thing Mom’s eyes aimed to impart?
Despite the ever-present sense that life without her energy was aimless, I was gradually beginning to accept that, in spite of my juvenile objection, the man in me had been provided more than enough.
“So, what’s up? What are you up to now?” a college friend leaned in to inquire. I was reclined at his kitchen table, making myself at home with the familiarity afforded in a decades-old friendship. This was as large an emotional opening as men offer one another, so I sprinted through.
“I’ve stopped consulting and am focused full time on being a running coach,” I stated as firmly as I could manage. “I want to help others find as much joy in the sport as it’s provided for me. For us.” I continued. Rushing, I elaborated before he could interject. “I just couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t get myself to care about improving websites for insurance companies or making better banking software.” I finished, barely managing to contain my scorn for tired capitalist pursuits.
“Huh, that’s…awesome!” He positively received my anxious proclamation.
“Yeah?” I inquired to draw out more of the peer approval that I desperately desired.
“Yeah. I know you’ll do great,” he affirmed.
“Well, isn’t that nice,” his wife suggested with a slick layer of sarcasm from across the kitchen. I looked up, somewhat stunned, pausing to understand her angle. “What a privileged problem to have…” she mocked my entitled professional predicament.
Seconds passed as her statement hung between us. As if a bubble blown, her judgment drifted, spun, and then burst. Its moment having passed, I found a breath and formed my reply. “Absolutely. It’s a privileged thing to say. Cause I’m the one saying it. I’m privileged, and I need to figure out what to do with my life.” I attempted to stick the last punctuation with purpose, then paused and stared back, pushing at her assertion while attempting to make sense of it myself.
That was my issue. Afforded safety, security, income, and education, Mom’s eyes were insisting to me: this is this. Do not stop. Don’t settle. Do not fear the artificial expectations of others.
Of all of Mom’s gifts, within a lifetime filled with effort, empathy, and excellence, was her conscientious irreverence. An ability to tiptoe along life’s tightrope of expectations, balancing carefully between participation and pushback. Not fully committing to a step that might send her toward conformity or leaning so far back as to risk stumbling into rejection. It’s a confident kindness that says, “I’ll play mostly along, but will still make my own way.” It's a willingness to care for others, even though they’ve hurt you. And the resolve to move forward without seeking approval.
After years of staring into her last gaze whenever I close mine, I see it as a silent insistence that I dislodge from the safety of social expectation and fashion each day in a way true to the tune that she taught me. Not performative originality or attempting to be seen a certain way. Venturing to mimic the strength that she demonstrated repeatedly while forging her career. From empowering children as a teacher in South Boston to uplifting authors by establishing Portland on the national literary stage. From pushing local arts leaders to imagine grander possibilities, to helping college students succeed as the first in their families to enroll. The point was her compassionate pressure. Her insistence on not settling for what others looked at and deemed good enough.
The truth is, moving forward without her feels like faking. Seems like spinning a lie that I’m learning to justify. As if perpetually gripping a small weight. It’s moving through days with muscles tense and breath tight. Abs clinched, and teeth clenched. It’s saying things are “alright” even as the exhausting stance grows unbearable.
“How are you?” friends would ask me with apprehension. And for two years, I would improvise my answer, allowing words to spill from my mouth, unclear of what I meant until I heard them come out. Always hoping they’d form something that sounded like reason. It was a frantic, rambling attempt to construct something positive, even as my vessel was drifting from the life I adored. It’s trying to make sense while still seeking guidance from her.
“I think it’s like a ping-pong ball,” she attempted to encourage her snot-nosed college son with a metaphor years ago.
“Are you sure it’s not a tennis ball or basketball?” I smirked back.
“Don’t be a shithead P. What I mean is that you’re supposed to bop around. I think the path we’re supposed to follow goes this way and that,” her thin hands waving in a zigzag motion to signal the unexpected.
So that’s what this is. Detached from her, I’m left to drift, hoping that I’m headed toward something positive, if undefined. For two years, the word “unmoored” spun within me until something ironic about the metaphor struck: Vessels may be safe in harbor, but they’re not constructed to remain static.
Life without her riotous reactive impulse feels insidiously still. Raised in a home with a matriarch who ate bites of food with her hands, punctuated her points with curse words, and affectionately smacked others on the shoulder is unorthodox. Days without her feel terrifyingly calm. As if convention and caution are gently shushing us to quiet down, attempting to close the door to possibility and creativity that Mom’s presence propped open.
For months, my only antidote to stillness was screaming. Within the safety of my SUV, I’d drive down city streets with folk music at full volume and holler until my throat hurt. Not out of anger, but exhaustion. A shrill call to briefly disrupt the suffocating stillness that was settling in around me. As the cacophony of my stereo speakers crashed against me, I was briefly able to breathe and more fully able to feel. From her favorite rock songs to melodies peaking with madness, sentiments of heartbreak rang the most true.
“Don't you wait to try it
Are you scared to find it?
And do you want to take my broken heart?
Are you scared to start?”
Driving home down damp streets from a family dinner out, I played these lines at a volume slightly too loud, given that my son was in the back seat, but I suspected he might also appreciate such rhythmic poetry. And I sang the sentences in my head until I noticed that the tune sounded slightly off.
“Don't you wait to try it
Are you scared to find it?
And do you want to take my broken heart?
And will you ever heal from all these scars?”
Noticing that the vocal pitch seemed slightly high, I reached up to twist the volume knob down in wonder, only to reveal why. My son was singing along. His pre-adolescent pitch slightly lifting the tune as he sang of heartbreak and fear well beyond anything he yet knew.
“Can you play that again?” he inquired as the piano strings slowly vibrated to a stop.
“Of course,” I sped to say before my throat choked with emotion. Reaching back up, I clicked repeat and spun the volume button up without restraint.
“And she said
Don't you wait to try it
Are you scared to find it?
And do you want to take my broken heart?
Are you scared to start?”
Metallic guitar strums and a bass piano melody reverberated around and across the car, binding us both within the moment. And as the strings settled for a second time, he spoke up sweetly, “Dada…I miss Julie,” he unexpectedly read the sentiment streaming through my mind.
“I…I do, too, sweetheart.” I pushed out before my throat cinched, assuring him that he was not alone. Tears streamed down my cheeks in lines as I snapped upright, back straight, and stare forward to obscure his view from the back seat.
“I do, too.”
Indulging in such raw emotion provides peace through pain because it pushes the discomfort to the surface and peels away the facade that risks expanding between us and her memory.
“Me too, sweetheart,” I assured him.
Years of being fixated on the word “unmoored” were focused on detachment from the life that I’d adored. It took hearing my son share in his young form of heartbreak to appreciate that while I am now unmoored, I’m also tethered. Just as Mom led our family the final decades of her life, while also a heartbroken daughter who missed her mother. My son’s soft singing awakened me to the truth that, despite my indignance, I’m nearly three years into wandering while acting as the emotional cartographer for our family.
Whether I acknowledge it or not, he is looking to me to break life’s headwinds. And just as I was afforded the space to experiment and learn from her, I now need to see my direction not in relation to what once was, but toward the future we will forge together as a family. My son Will, my wife Julia, and our loved ones must nurture cherished memories without them preventing us from moving forward.
It’ll never be alright that Mom is gone.
Never be okay that the life that I adored is over.
Because it was incredible.
Her presence acted as flashes of light mixed with updrafts of excitement, soothed by waves of warmth that signified depths of love.
“Come here, P,” she’d insist. Then, she’d fold her thin forearm around mine, pulling me close. Gently pinning me within her field of maternal protection.
I will forever see your eyes peering up into mine. But thankfully, I no longer view them as a terrifyingly static farewell. Instead, I consider the final glimmer of your expression as expectant insistence that I face each day with the audacity of an open heart. One that invites others, humbly appreciates the work, and amplifies their potential with love.
Love you Mom,
P
Thank you, Peter. Peering into your window of life with your mom is excruciatingly beautiful. She was a rockstar through and through. I feel lucky to have been able to share a small sliver of life with her. I will forever miss her and her enthusiasm for so much of life. Take good care and carry on.
Hard to read this, Peter. Makes me miss your mom with a raw, hard pain……. Thanks for giving me a reason to think of her……to miss her…. To be grateful for having her in my life… still….