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One hundred and two years ago today, my mom, Helen Devlin Murphy was born. I sometimes wonder how much I am like her, whether I would have made her proud or if we would have grown from mother/daughter to friends. What would we have disagreed on, argued about, come to agree on. Would it have been a relationship that was a roller coaster, eye- rolling annoyance, or a warm and trusting relationship?

I wonder if she had lived into my teen and adult years how her presence would have impacted the me I am today. I will never know.

My memories are scattered, mostly vignettes, and as much as it’s hard to admit, mostly dim and dimming.

I think I know how her loss impacted me. Imagine a tsunami hitting a beach where I am standing alone. That about defines the loss.

I was 12 when she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia. She died 9 months after diagnosis. I imagine the outcome would have been different today, 57 years later. But about this I can only wonder.

A few short months after ‘Ma’ died, I graduated 8th grade. A few short years later high school, college, graduate school, her only daughter to do that. I fell in love, and never got to tell her about it. I had children and never got to call her and tell her I felt the fist kick in utero. I had successes I couldn’t celebrate with her, losses and fears I couldn’t cry with her about. I never had the joy of introducing her to my newborns.

If you are an adult with a mom, tell me about it. There is in me a gaping vacuum which is curious and longing to know what it’s like to have a mom as an adult.

On this day, 102 years after her birth, nearly 57 years after losing her, I allow myself to look into the void and wonder. But often I don’t allow it.

If you have a mom as an adult, good or bad, consider what it would be like to do life without her, and do me a favor: call her. Chat about everything important or nothing of significance. Do that for me, because I can’t.