"My Mother's Death Was the Best Thing to Happen to Me"

Too Old for This Sh*t: How to Take Your Life Back from an Ageist Society

Photo by Jose Escobar on Unsplash

No, it isn’t what you might be thinking.

She showed up at my door yesterday cradling a bouquet of flowers for Mother’s Day. Not for her mother. For her mother’s memory and for herself.

We put the flowers on my breakfast bar and introduced her to my new puppy.

This woman is likely to take care of Mika every so often. That’s how we met: a referral from my physical therapist.

Let’s call her Andy.

Andy’s 42, with gorgeous peaches and cream skin that has no business glowing like that. She’s got golden highlights in her hair and has enviable sparkly blue eyes.

She misses her mother like her own heart.

“We were twin flames,” Andy tells me as we sit on the floor of my little kitchen cove, my puppy between us sucking up the love. “She died quite suddenly at sixty. I was devastated. But it was the best thing that could have happened."

Andy dislikes Arizona, where she was born. The desert, the heat, the arid landscape. It’s not without its stunning beauties, the gorgeous sunsets. But the triple-digit heat and lack of trees isn’t for everyone.

As much as Andy loved her mother, as long as she was alive, Arizona was home. Not long after her mother passed, Andy was on her way to the Pacific Northwest, where the rain, trees and cool air were a boon not only to her body but also her intense grief.

Her first apartment was a tiny one-bedroom. She started walking dogs as a favor. Not long afterwards word got around that she wasn’t just good at it. She was excellent. The demand grew and she started charging.

She could be trusted to take care of the dog’s medications and get them solid exercise and deliver them back happy and tired. People loved the freedom this service gave them.

Andy found that Eugene, which is a huge dog town full of owners who will do damned near anything for their puppers, needed a dog walker. Someone who could sit, care for and help maintain pups regularly. There’s such a demand that she could fill her calendar by focusing on just one general neighborhood.

But it wasn’t just that.

The larger journey here was healing her heart. Being able to lavish affection on other people’s dogs began to knit that part of her back together. The other part was that those clients whose dogs she cares for became friends and family.

Likely she gets plenty of mothering from clients closer to my age.

In fact, Andy grins as she tells me this, one client had a man working at the house. He and Andy passed each other regularly, until finally the woman client handed the man Andy’s card after she’d checked with both of them about the attraction.

They found their way together, and got a Great Pyrenees for their own household. She hadn’t anticipated that, either.

Photo by Ashley Levinson on Unsplash

Every year on Mother’s Day, she goes to the same Safeway. The same florist creates a bouquet for her to honor her mom.

“I’ve connected with her in the most profound way since she passed,” Andy told me. That happens. I wasn’t close to my mother but I am quite aware of her presence behind my eyes, especially when I travel. I can hear her when I laugh. She lives through me in ways I hadn’t anticipated.

As her business grew, so did Andy’s network of friends. These days, her clients are the same people she plays with. She’s got a trusted community of some ninety regular clients around my part of town, which means she can schedule all kinds of furball care easily as they live in a well-defined area.

In fact the demand is so great she’s looking to hire.

Her father insisted that she “get a real job.” Then, when he visited her and was able to visit some of her clients, watch her work and the quality of care she was delivering, he realized that she already had her real job.

Then, out of a great love for her animals and a gift for photography, Andy start making calendars for her clients using the best photos of their dogs. They are hugely popular.

Not only does she adore the photography, her clients love seeing terrific shots of their puppers, themed for each month, on their walls. That’s a money maker.

I love that Andy’s story, while borne of great grief, led to all kinds of love. A place she loves to live, work she loves to do, for people she loves to be around.

In such ways we heal the wounds in our hearts and learn to live with the scars of loss. Andy still cries, she still misses her mother. But had her mother not died, she would not be here now and living her dream.

Her mother’s death was the price paid for that dream. It’s not lost on her.

Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash

In a world full of soul-killing work just to pay the bills, finding a niche and filling it with all the love you can muster is an admirable way to make a living.

Before she left, I stuffed four tangerines into the small box which protected her bouquet’s vase. She’s already hired; I now have three different options for Mika depending on my needs.

My mother passed early in the century. She was the main reason I had returned to Colorado after living in Spokane. Her death gave me the freedom to eventually move here as well, where I’ve found a home, am working on friends and a community.

Today, on Mother’s Day, as Andy remembers her mother with flowers, she is surrounded by a huge furball of love and her partner.

I get to celebrate the four-year anniversary of the first time I drove up here to take a serious look around for a home. May 2020, when I first saw the house that I live in today.

Our mothers bear us into the world. In many cases, their deaths release us, orphaned from our most powerful human connection, to become who we must be in the world. For better or for worse, we owe them thanks for the gift of life.

Wherever your mother may be, I hope she has your gratitude. Mine does. They gave us life. The rest may or may not have been easy. It may have been awful. There are no guarantees. All of us do the best we can with what we’ve got.

But to be able to be in this world, that came from Mom (with a little help from Dad, natch).

As we celebrate our moms, let’s play.

Photo by Lawrence Crayton on Unsplash

I hope this quiet day of celebration finds you well. Thanks for reading. If this story worked for you please consider

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Above all, celebrate being here. You are worth it.