Steven LaChance Blog

Life with my mother comes back in flashes now. It is funny how differently you see things as an adult than you did as a child. I see her more human now than I ever did before. I see the other side of the story that children are often too young to understand. I understand now some of the struggles that were there and some of the reasons behind the things I saw.

I can still see her mopping the kitchen floor on a sunny day. The windows are open and a nice breeze is blowing the curtains. She is in a good mood, humming along to the record she has been playing on repeat for hours. It was Percy Sledge singing “When a Man Loves a Woman.” I could tell she was thinking about my Dad, and even in that simple moment I could see the overwhelming love she had for him.

The memories come back in moments like that.

I can smell the Doublemint gum she would pop into her mouth every time she got behind the wheel of her car. A big old forest green Lincoln that felt more like a driving living room than a car. She would turn on the radio to the local rock station. She loved Janis Joplin and The Who. Rock music was for the car. R&B and folk music were for the house.

Purple was always her favorite color. Lavender, actually. A soft color that said more about her real personality beneath the protected exterior she showed the world.

I was always very close with my mother. I think my brothers sometimes misunderstood just how close we were and maybe were even a little jealous of that relationship at times. But the relationship between a gay son and his mother can be something very different. In many ways, my mother knew me completely long before I ever said the words out loud myself. She was the first person who truly saw me for who I was. All she ever wanted for me was to find real love. Every time a relationship in my life fell apart, she would calmly tell me it was because something better was waiting for me ahead. And somehow she was almost always right. Actually, she usually was.

My mother lived through very hard things. She outlived her husband and two of her children. She survived cancer, and now she is living through dementia.

I can still see her cooking dinner while singing along with Diana Ross. “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” And there never was for her.

She was a very young mother who loved fiercely. She could be a drill sergeant one moment and a nun the next. She made the best fried chicken you have ever eaten in your life. She made life feel safe for us.

There is one photograph that stays in my mind. It was Christmas morning and she had to be around thirty-five years old. She is smiling in the picture while the family opens presents around her. But beneath that smile there was something else happening. She was battling cancer.

What I see now that I could not see then was how hard that battle really was for her. She was never someone who wanted sympathy. She hid it well. But as an adult, I can see it now.

We like to think of our parents as perfect when we are children. But the truth is they are as human as we are.

The day she received her dementia diagnosis, I could hear the fear in her voice over the phone. I stopped her and reminded her that she had this. There was nothing she could not handle. This was simply another part of the journey of living, the very thing she taught me all my life: that life is beautiful in both the good and the bad because we are here for the journey of experiencing it all.

Now there are only glimmers of the mother who raised me. But she is still here.

She understands what is happening to her even when the disease becomes frightening, and there have been some very hard days. I think the hardest moments are when she asks me the same question every time I see her:

“Did your Dad die?”

Maybe she sees the pain on my face when she asks it, even though I try to hide it, because before I can answer she always quietly responds to her own question:

“Of course he did.”

The pain of that realization is there every single time.

But I remind myself that it is not only an expression of pain. It is also an expression of love.

She also tells me my Dad comes to see her. That he sits beside her bed and talks to her. Knowing how deeply my father loved and adored her, I honestly do not doubt it for a second. I am sure he is there because theirs was one of the great loves. The kind that lasts a lifetime and beyond.

Because when a man loves a woman, she can do no wrong.

Now I finally understand that song and why she used to play it over and over again.

I like being older and finally understanding the human side of my parents. Seeing them as human does not diminish them in my eyes at all. It makes them stronger because I understand their struggles for what they truly were now, and I finally see their strength clearly.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.

I love you.