The Phantom Limb of Love

We are coming up on the anniversary of my mom’s passing, two years ago. It is less about the day itself and more about the slow remembering of her life as the date approaches. The weight grows a little heavier each day. The gravity of it becomes more present.

I still miss her every day. There are moments when I forget she is gone. I will think of something and instinctively reach for my phone to call her and share it, only to remember a second later that I cannot.

It is a strange feeling, like the phantom limb phenomenon. Except the missing piece is a large part of my heart, and sometimes my brain forgets to tell the rest of me that it is gone.

Today I cashed in my Barnes and Noble rewards. Buying books with my mom was something special we shared growing up. Early on I was a terrible reader because of a hearing issue that had been missed. Later, when that was resolved and I committed to getting better, I fell in love with reading.

My mother, as all good mothers do, fueled that fire.

We would go to bookstores and pick out fantasy novels together. A father might say, “Why are you reading that nonsense?” But a mother knows better. My son was reading. Whatever he was reading was wonderful. She was proud of me.

Those trips were usually part of a larger kind of day. The kind where we would run errands together, grab lunch, and she would buy me a small gift somewhere along the way. Simple days. Nothing extraordinary on the surface. Yet those memories remain etched deeply in my mind. I hold them now with a deep sense of gratitude.

In the end we are still little children at heart. I can buy almost anything now, any material object I want. But none of it fills this space. The tears come from the heart and from a beautiful love remembered.

Sometimes I think about the movie AI. The robot who just wanted one last perfect day with his mother. One day of being loved unconditionally by the only person who could give him that love. The quiet perfection of peace in a mother’s arms. The way she would look down at you with that expression of pure love.

That joy.

I think of the words of Jesus: so that you may have joy, and that your joy may be complete.

Jesus promised that we would not be left alone. He said that when he left, he would send the Holy Spirit, described as the Comforter, the Advocate, and the Spirit of truth. That presence has always felt a little like a mother to me.

All is not lost. Even though I am fully here in this world, I can also feel the almost imperceptible release of weight being removed from the scale of life. And yet I trust that death is not the end.

I look forward to seeing her again someday.

And to that embrace.