Amy Lu's View

Today is the twenty-first anniversary of my mom’s death. 

I didn’t do anything in particular to observe it. I did frequently think, “DAMN, it’s been TWENTY-ONE years?! I really miss her and can’t believe it’s been so long since she’s been part of my life.* I also can’t believe how old I’m getting.”

I didn’t specifically commemorate my mom today, but I did run a half marathon. It was virtual, which meant I actually ran it in the physical world, but I didn’t run it as part of an event with others. I ran the race today because I needed to get it finished by the end of the month and this was the only day I could take a morning off from work and play rehearsal and church to make it happen. 

Even though there is no direct connection for me between running and my mom, I did stop to reflect a little bit on how fortunate I am that I was able to take some time for myself on this sad day to do something just for me. I did my best to savor the beauty of the fall colors of the trees on a day when the beauty and ephemerality of the natural world was a poignant symbol for how I was experiencing a core human relationship. I also feel really blessed that I am healthy enough to run and was especially aware of this on a day when illness (cancer) ended my mom’s life.

I’ve also been pondering how my mom would react to my running. Overall, I don’t think she would get it. I’m sure she would be very worried about my knees or that I might get mugged. She would probably talk about my “10K Marathons.” I don’t think I could possibly explain a “virtual” race to her. But I’m sure she would still be proud, and would never tire of looking at my latest medal. She would probably tell anyone she could about all the races her daughter had won (just to be clear, this would not be true–all finishers get medals). 

While it’s hard for me to imagine my mom and I bonding over running, we could now bond over alcohol. I could intentionally toast to my mother with a Brandy Alexander (or a Grasshopper). Yes, she held up the traditional Wisconsin love of ice cream based supper club cocktails. If she was alive and it was feasible to do so, I definitely would enjoy one of these magical concoctions with her. But for present day Amy sans mom, making or acquiring such a treat is too much work (and too many calories). 

But I WILL have some straight brandy tonight…and some low-calorie Halo ice cream (in roughly the same time period but not actually together). Which yes, basically makes it a night–it’s not always brandy but I almost always have some hard booze to accompany my nightly Halo. My mom would not understand this but she would be happy if it made me happy (which it does). 

So yeah, my mom’s spirit would now be legally able to go into a Wisconsin supper club (or hipster supper club somewhere else) and buy a Brandy Alexander. And no, I don’t actually believe in ghosts but it was an observation/very on-brand Amy “joke” I didn’t want to resist making. 

*This is an incomplete statement. My mom is NOT part of my life as a living breathing embodied entity I can interact with, and this is a huge void that I don’t want to minimize, but she is still part of my life in that I continue to think about her–both my memories of her and my imaginings of what she would say and how she would react if she was alive. But trying to capture all this in the original paragraph interrupted the flow of my writing.