WHAT MY MOTHER GAVE ME

In Memory of Susan Marilyn NikaMy Wonderful, Beautiful, Sweet, Brave Mother and Best Friend

My mother bravely battled brain cancer for 22 years. That is what statistics and medical science, will reveal about her. But my mom was not her disease, nor did the way we lost her this week have anything to do with the beautiful, loving way she lived. Susan Marilyn Nika was a wife, mother, teacher, dog lover, sailor, mystery book enthusiast, and daughter of the Navy. She was my confidante, inspiration and best friend. She brought me into this world, and I was given the gift to be with her when she made her earthly exit.

Her survival was a true marvel and quiet miracle, one that meant I had a mother through my childhood, teens and twenties. It's hard now to face that even miracles have limits, but I know her death was not in vain. She has taught me how to live life gratefully. I’ve been by her bedside at hospitals throughout my life since I was 9 years old, and I thought, with heartfelt naiveté, that at the end, she’d always bounce back and come back home with us. Now my mortal innocence is gone, but my life already feels fuller in knowing how fragile it is. We must hold this knowledge close, and live every day with intent.

As a young woman myself now, I wish I knew more about her as a someone beyond “Mom.” To seek her counsel on parenting, marriage, aging gracefully as a woman (to her very last breath, she was literally without vanity, but also, wrinkles), or what it was, really, truly, like to be her, Susie. To hear one more story from her about her childhood in Japan, her time spent exploring Europe with her own mom, or how she learned about love. I'd trade everything to have one more cup of tea in town with her, a Gilmore Girls marathon, a late night coffee chat, or even just a silly moment to play with eye makeup (she taught me all the tricks, and we both have a strange affinity for blue flourishes.) I wanted her to visit me in Brooklyn, and see the life and love I am nurturing there with my dear Evan. To look once more into her tempest green eyes, which changed with her moods, like mine. I just want to feel my Mom's wonderfully strong arms around me one more time. I ache for her voice. I wish I had understood earlier the importance of giving protective love to your mother as well as receiving hers. But we both did the best we could — we were both far too young to understand how short our time together really was.

My mom was only 36 years old when the thief cancer first darkened our world. Her diagnosis closed certain doors on the possible selves she could become and the stories she could tell. Over 22 years, her voice became limited due to her tumor, and she sometimes couldn’t express the depth of her feelings through words, which upset her. But she didn't need words; her loving presence was the mightiest I've known. My mom was interested in what me, my brother, and my father loved. She asked lots of questions. She listened. She learned. In illness and in health, she grew ever more kind and selfless, understanding the ebb and flow of life not many have the privilege or courage to earn.

With everything, we have two choices: to turn towards fear or towards love. Fear can be a safe choice. It means delaying things, avoiding discomfort, hiding from the world and things you don’t understand. Love means being open to all experience, even pain, death, and the frail, bittersweet humility of the human experience. It means never hiding from the fact we are mortal, and that we must make life count. It means coming into the light. What I can tell you is that my Mom was not a fearful person. She chose light. She traveled, even alone on trains and planes, to see those she loved — doing so in spite of chemo treatments, seizures, and even while recovering from multiple brain surgeries. One of my favorite memories of Mommie is from Spring 2009, when she came to the city by train with me to help me move into my first West Village apartment. She helped me organize and clean and settle, and we celebrated my new New Yorker status by going out for a mother/daughter dinner in my new neighborhood. She then made the long journey home by subway, looking back at me with her tender smile and a happy glisten in her eyes. She had delivered me into the world. Only recently able to walk again, she made that long train ride home solo. If she was scared of being alone, or losing her balance, or getting lost, she never showed it. She chose love, not fear.

You never know when death will come, and when it does, we wish we'd truly savored the moments of life we took for granted while we were dreading the unknown. We struggle with how to value things until they’ve passed. There was so much left my Mom wanted to do and I’m angry her life feels so unfinished. But in this final year with her, in which I've been tormented as I watched parts of the person who raised me slip away, I wish I could have spent our time left as she would have for me — with gratitude for our unbreakable bond that could transcend words, logic, and physicality itself. We can't control that time controls us, but I know this: the past may bring certainty, but I don’t want to miss the future.

My Mom loved to read and encouraged me to write. Now writing is what I do for a living and my daily challenge is to make the intangible tangible, and to express the unreal. In this very intangible, unreal time, I do not yet know how to express it. But I know it will forever affect how I express anything else. I hope it will make me face the unknown with more bravery. To follow dreams despite any odds. To embrace life in all its imperfection. To be connected and loving and curious and open. And, always, to know when to use my voice and to make it count. My Mom will be in my every word.