Marla Vendret

Life throws a lot at us, sometimes all at once. That’s particularly how I felt this last weekend when confronting three radically different experiences. On Saturday night, my oldest daughter was attending her junior prom. Isn’t she beautiful?

 

It was Mother’s day on Sunday…but my mom died a couple weeks ago. Not feeling like celebrating my own motherhood, Ray, me and the kids joined my dad and sister for a breakfast, then visit at the Nevada cemetery…to stare at a pile of dirt. Dirt that forever separated me from my mom. So we grieved anew.

 

Wednesday, we celebrated my birthday. My first birthday without Mom. It didn’t feel right either. Other than a shared lunch with Ray and cheesecake in the evening, we didn’t do anything. Anyone who knows our family traditions knows that we make a big deal of birthdays, and this wasn’t anything like that. By Saturday, however, we were feeling a bit more up-to-snuff, so we celebrated my birthday a bit more traditionally, going to the movies to watch Wolverine, eat a slice of pizza and drink coffees at Starbucks.

 

This year is going to be hard. A year of “firsts,” without Mom. First Mother’s day. First birthday. First Memorial Day. First Thanksgiving. First Christmas. In our lives, we’re taught to compete to be first, so it’s a bit ironic for me because there’s no joy in any of these firsts. I would have much preferred that I didn’t have any of these firsts at all.

 

NOTE: These photos were heavily re-imaged. I feel that these distortions depict how one event distorts/colors how we experience everything else.