mama – Pantsless Weirdo

The Twelfth

Posted on July 12, 2019 (October 16, 2019) by PantslessWeirdo

Mom, I’ve always thought that the “f” in “twelfth” was unnecessary. We don’t use an “f” in any of the other spellings, like tenth, eleventh, thirteenth, or thirtieth. I remember when I was little, the way you would lament the complexities of the English language. “Shouldn’t we say you put your bewt on your fewt …

Sixty-third

Posted on June 5, 2019 (September 27, 2019) by PantslessWeirdo

Dear Mama, Happy birthday. You would have been 63 today. You would have hated being in your 60s, I’m sure. Still, I think you would have aged well given the chance. I hadn’t realized how little I have written here because I have written here, I just haven’t published. This blog has 85 published posts, …

From a flawed daughter to an imperfect mother

Posted on April 7, 2017 (August 30, 2019) by PantslessWeirdo

It has been 3 years, 8 months, 26 days since you left this world. Our lives are so full up with grief that it’s hard to recall what it was like before. And my life is now overflowing with the love of a little boy who makes my heart explode into glittery confetti every single …

Tonic immobility

Posted on February 3, 2017 (August 30, 2019) by PantslessWeirdo

For two weeks after the election, I walked around in a thick haze of confusion and grief. I grieved for the nation I thought we were, for the terror that many people I care about were now facing, for the uncertainty of the four years that lay ahead. We need to give him a chance! People …

deathly desires and birthday wishes

Posted on June 5, 2014 (August 30, 2019) by PantslessWeirdo

My childhood was replete with moments where my mother lamented the fact that she was still alive. Hers was a life packed with significant pain early on, and by the time she left this world at the still-young age of fifty-seven, she was all but bursting at the seams with sorrow. She never tried to …

Six Long Months

Posted on January 12, 2014 (August 30, 2019) by PantslessWeirdo

We knew January 12th was going to gut us no matter what. Six months is a significant amount of time for your mother to be dead. Any amount of time is significant when you’re talking about your mother being dead, really, but six months has a certain something about it. That’s half a year. It’s a …

five months

Posted on December 12, 2013 (August 30, 2019) by PantslessWeirdo

It was five months ago today that you left us. My sisters and I tried to have Thanksgiving without you and it didn’t work. I had a meltdown the way I often do, and you weren’t here to talk me through it. You weren’t here to remind my sisters that my withdrawal, my feral child …

The season of silence

Posted on November 28, 2013 (August 31, 2019) by PantslessWeirdo

The holidays are looming large and I can’t say that I am very excited about them at all. My relationship with the holidays has always been complicated. Our mom tried her hardest to make them warm and fun, but even as young children we could see the sadness in her eyes and feel the heaviness …

four months

Posted on November 12, 2013 (August 30, 2019) by PantslessWeirdo

Four months ago you left us. Last week as I slept in a hotel room just outside Chicago, I dreamed of you and I wept in my sleep. I wept so hard in my sleep that I audibly cried out until I awakened myself. You were so vivid in my dream that it took me …

Three months in one direction or another

Posted on October 12, 2013 (August 30, 2019) by PantslessWeirdo

Three months ago today you left us. Some days my sisters and I refer to it as being “three months in”. Other days we call it “three months out”. We are a few weeks out from having last held your hands, a few weeks out from the last time we heard you laugh or saw …

Pantsless Weirdo

Unfocused Essays from My Basement

Category: mama