Member-only story
HER ABSENCE, MY WITNESS
The World of the Motherless Son
On becoming a man my mother will never meet
Last night, I caught myself waiting for a call that will never come.
Four years since my mother died, and some cellular part of me still expects her voice on Sunday evenings — that familiar cadence asking about my week, about plans for the holidays, about whether I’m eating enough vegetables.
Four years of silence where her voice should be.
I exist now in the aftermath of her. In the space that opened when she left. In the life that continues, impossibly, without her witness. Engaged to a woman she’ll never evaluate. Living in a home she’ll never enter. Estranged from the twin sister she assumed would be my lifelong ally. Watching her brother and sister — my aunt and uncle — migrate to Florida without her complaints or her reluctant visits.
This is not a story about grief’s transformative power. This is not about finding meaning in loss. This is not about her living on in my heart or memory.
This is about what it means to still be someone’s son when that someone is gone.
