My 7th grade English teacher gave me a journal and a locket when my mother died. She told me to write my memories of my mother so they could be remembered. I'm not sure I wrote down memories of her, but I ended up writing letters to her. I started each one with "Dear Mommy,". In the first ten years or so, they were frequent. I would write almost monthly. In a way, I felt forced to because I wanted to somehow keep her in my life and feel like she was still there. But then, the letters became less frequent. After getting married, I didn't write any letters to her until I got pregnant. I think in a way it's symbolic of the grieving process I experienced represented by the frequency of the letters. Life became more normal without her and slowly her presence faded. Doesn't mean she mattered any less to me, but it was a new normal.
She kept a diary in the last few years of her life. Most of it was written in Chinese. She would write down the happenings of the day, the progression of her prognoses, and include tidbits about what was happening in our lives as well. She never shared it with me or anything, and I didn't think much about it. After she died, my grandfather requested to have her diary. I never asked him about what was written in it and he never shared. Perhaps it was more sentimental just to keep the diary than actually reading through her logs. He died less than a year later and the diary moved along with my grandmother because she could not live alone. When I spent summers with my grandmother during the last few years of her life, I'd occasionally look for the diary, but I never found it. Even if I did, I doubt I would have been able to translate most of it.
I don't really have anything in writing left from my mother. That's something I wish I had more of. The most I have in writing from her is a newsletter journal from the first grade. Throughout the school year, about six times total, we would write letters to our parents about what we were learning or what events were happening at school. Then, we would take the journal home and our parents would read our letters and write one back to us. My reply letters were written by my mother.
About two months ago, I went out and bought a journal. If you've known me a while, you'll know that I've journaled and written diaries for years and years. But what you may not know is that I have always journaled in the cheap spiral notebooks you used to be able to find on sale for 10 cents each during the school supply sales. I wasn't into the fancy notebooks with designs or bound in leather because I felt like you couldn't neatly shelf them - it wouldn't be consistent. So I figured the simple spiral notebooks were easier to keep organized. Ironically, they're all boxed away sitting on a shelf somewhere. I don't know what I will do with them. Perhaps when my daughter goes through her teenage rebellious phase, I'll bring out the journals and let her read about my own teenage rebellious phase.
Anyway, the journal I bought is for her. I started writing letters in them before she was born, and whenever I get a chance or have something worth noting, I write it down in a letter to her. Jonathan writes in it occasionally, too. Every letter in there I write ends the same way: Love, Mommy.
I'll probably still write letters to my mother. Perhaps not as often or as frequent, but now, I am also Mommy.
