I’m Glad My Mom Died

The first time I felt relief instead of grief, I was standing over her casket, staring at the too-perfect makeup plastered on her face. Lilies choked the air—her favorite flower, though she’d never once planted a garden. My hands didn’t shake. My chest didn’t tighten. Instead, I felt the weight of a thousand swallowed words dissolve like sugar on my tongue. Someone behind me whispered, “Poor girl, she’s in shock,” but I knew the truth: I was finally free. And that freedom tasted like guilt, like oxygen, like coming up for air after decades of drowning.


🌊 Part 1: The Funeral That Wasn’t for Her
The funeral home smelled like regret. Aunt Carol had insisted on open caskets, as if death required proof. Mom looked peaceful, which was the first lie of the day. Peace wasn’t Her language. “Her love was a riptide—violent, relentless, dragging you under just to prove it could.”

I wore black, but not for mourning. “Black hides stains."

People patted my shoulder, mistaking my dry eyes for strength. “She’s in a better place,” they said. I bit my tongue. The better place was here, in this room, where she couldn’t scream at the priest for reading the wrong Bible verse or critique the pallbearers’ posture. The better place was anywhere she wasn’t.


🎭 Part 2: The Checklist of a “Good” Daughter
Mom didn’t believe in birthdays, only bargains. When I turned seven, she gifted me a porcelain doll with hollow eyes and a dress stitched from her old wedding veil. “l” she said. I kept it on a shelf for 20 years, dusting its lifeless face every Sunday.

Her love came with conditions:
 Are you thinner?
 Are you quieter?
 Are you sorry yet?

By 15, I’d carved myself into something bite-sized and palatable, a performance she’d grudgingly applaud. “Finally,” she’d say, “you’re starting to try.”


🌪️ Part 3: The Boyfriend Who Broke the Spell
At 22, I brought home a boyfriend—kind, soft-spoken, a teacher who quoted Neruda and baked sourdough. Mom met him at the door with a smile sharp enough to slice bone. “You’ll ruin her,” she told him. “She’s fragile.” Later, she handed me a list titled “Why You’ll Regret This.”Item #3:“He doesn’t know how to love someone like you.”

I married him anyway.

“She wore white to the wedding “


💀 Part 4: The Last Bargain
Cancer came like a thief, but Mom treated it like a negotiation. “If I survive this,” p rasped from her hospital bed, IV lines snaking around her wrists like jewelry, “you’ll quit your job. Move home. Fix what you broke.”

I brought her Jell-O instead of promises.

The last time she spoke to me, she didn’t say “I love you.” She said, “You’ll miss me when I’m gone.”

“She was half right. “


🌻 Part 5: The Color of Freedom
After the funeral, I sold the doll. I kept the veil.

Therapy taught me the difference between love and labor. Love doesn’t keep receipts. It doesn’t tally faults like a debt collector.

I started small:
- Ate meals without counting calories.
- Cried during sad movies.
- Painted my walls sunflower yellow, a color she’d call “garish.”

Last week, my daughter asked why we don’t visit Grandma’s grave. “She’s not there,” I said. “But we are.”


🕊️ The Final Anchor: Breaking the Surface
Grief is a shape-shifter. Sometimes it’s a fist. Sometimes it’s a key. I don’t know if I’ve forgiven her, but I’ve stopped begging her to forgive me. “The cycle ends here”, in this house with yellow walls, where the air smells like burnt cookies and my daughter’s laughter. Where the water is calm.

“Where I’m learning, finally, how to float.”