When I got sick as a child, my mom had a saying, “You always feel worse at night”. As I made my way through life, this Momism applied to so many things. Teenage relationships, both with girls and guys, the night before an exam, then job interviews as I moved into adulthood. Grown-up issues seemed impossible in the darkness of my bedroom; illness, dying parents, money troubles, my life’s purpose, becoming insurmountable as the clock changed to p.m. The most recent addition to feeling worse at night: post-menopause sleeping challenges.
My foot surgery in July brought Mom and her wisdom to mind as I settled into bed each night with one last ice pack before sleep. It hurt, the bandage must have been made out of poison ivy as my ankle itched to insanity. Somehow I managed to drift off and in the morning it was as if that torturous time six hours before had not occurred.
I’m in my 50s and I miss my mom everyday since her death seven years ago . But even at my own advanced age, when I go through a medical situation, whether the common cold or going blind, I want my mom. It’s not the same as having her here physically, yet she still comforts and takes care of me. Momism. “Mom is in me.”
