Daughter shares what it was like finding her late mother’s diary
Claire being held by her mother.
Daughter gains more than just a diary
In July, Claire reached out to the American Diary Project to donate her late mother’s diary to the collection.
From Claire: “I have a diary from my late mother spanning about 10 years starting when she was 17. It’s a treasure. She was so funny and charismatic. I would love for it, and her, to be shared and live on. I want people to know who she was.”
Her mother’s 1980s diary is unique, entertaining, and, at times, heartbreaking. In essence, it is exquisitely human and we are honored at the American Diary Project to help preserve it.
With Claire’s permission, we share the following, which she wrote in response to the humbling experience of finding her mother’s diary after she passed.
Wise words from Claire
“I will never know what was contained between the final pages of my mom’s diary, or what happened in the in-betweens of her life. My mom died August 2nd, 2018, almost 2 years after my aunt Allison and after 7 years of homelessness. I got the call at work on my lunch-hour. I screamed in the car. I remember feeling like something was forcibly ripped out of my body.
Strangely, I expected her death, and yet I didn’t. I expected her to die from substance abuse or lung cancer. I didn’t expect her to die in her sleep from a blood clot after falling off a bicycle. I felt, and feel, a bizarre blend of intense remorse and relief.
Before she died, the van she had been living in was impounded. Having nothing from her and missing her desperately, I drove 2 hours with my mother-in-law to the impound lot to the search the van. I didn’t know what I would find. It was like a Schrödinger’s box of treasures: until I opened it, it contained everything and nothing. I was hoping to find my grandpa’s ashes, which were purportedly somewhere in the van.
I wasn’t prepared for the conditions she had been living in. I found worn clothes, broken furniture and lumber that she might have been burning for warmth, stuffed animals, cigarettes, and food wrappers. Everything was coated with a thin layer of dirt and grime. I found some photos and cards I sent her years before. They were torn, wrinkled, and stained, but they were with her. It was her way of loving me. I didn’t find my grandpa’s ashes, but I found her diary. I was bewildered. The woman who lost everything managed to hold onto her diary for over thirty years. It wasn’t the treasure I was looking for, but it was the treasure I needed.
My mother-in-law drove us back home. While she drove, I read the diary aloud. At some parts we absolutely howled in laughter. We lost it! Her personality sparkled and shone through the pages: the way she talked to everyone she met, the way she knew everyone’s name and story. She was a natural storyteller with a flair for the dramatic. She was a character.
My grandma and I were speaking recently on the phone about the diary, “It’s amazing.,” I said, “It’s like a view through a window.”
She paused, saddened. “A view through a window too late,” she said.
Reading the diary, it was evident that from a very young age my mom suffered from something she didn’t understand. Despite her spunk and passion for life, a deep undercurrent of despair and hopelessness lurked within her. The fact is, I will never fully understand what happened to my mom. I don’t know if it was an undiagnosed mental illness, substance abuse, or a combination of the two. I have to live with the knowledge that I did everything I could as a daughter and it wasn’t enough. Sometimes, we try our hardest but are unable to save the people we love.
When I got my own place at 18, I didn’t speak to my mom for over a year. I hated her. Hate is a really strong word, but I absolutely hated her. My dad always said we “butted heads”, but that was an understatement. We were stuck this cycle of hurting each other over and over. Her truths were not my truths. Eventually, in order to grow I had to untangle myself from her or we would both drown.
I learned that I couldn’t change who my mom was and that trying to help her was trying to change her. It was profoundly frustrating to continually try and try and try to help. It was like a black hole. We would house her, put her in rehab, pay her bills, give her money, feed her, and nothing ever changed. Somehow, she always wound back up at the bottom: on the streets, or drinking, or in a bad relationship. It was heartbreaking, over and over.
I learned that I couldn’t change who my mom was, but I could change my attitude towards her and my relationship with her. Slowly, gently, we rebuilt our relationship.
I don’t remember when we started speaking again, but gradually I let her back in. From the time I moved out to the time of her death, I saw my mom in person only a handful of times: most prominently, at my wedding and at the funeral home. However, by the end of her life we were talking on the phone nearly every day as I drove home from work. For the first time in many years, I actually looked forward to calling my mom.
We would talk about every menial detail of her day: the Big Iced Tea she had at 7-11, the people she met, what happened in her friends’ lives, what she bought at the Dollar Tree or Goodwill, what so-and-so said to so-and-so. Just like when I was a child, she was always, always telling me stories. Ultimately, these unimportant, trivial things were the most important things. When I think about my mom today, I remember her wild, teary-eyed laughter. I remember her stories.
I know very firmly that my mom and I truly loved each other. Our relationship was complicated, but at the core glowed a radiating love that warms me to this day. I miss talking to my mom on the phone. I miss the way she could bring her day and the people she encountered to life. I miss the way she talked my ear off while I listened, barely able to get a word in. I miss her leaving me voicemails as she sang to me. I miss her stories and her laughter. But, mostly, I miss my mom.
Although there was more to her than we could ever know, I’m blessed that I have her diary. It’s like a little piece of her soul. Thank you for letting me share her, for letting a bit of her essence live on between the pages.”
Claire holding her own daughter.
The beauty in the ordinary
Life is complex. Relationships are hard. Loss is even harder. And yet the ordinary moments contained in an old diary can bring comfort and joy to loved ones.
We are immensely grateful to Claire for sharing not only her mother’s diary but her own journey with loss and grief as well.
