I Will Remember You
A story about mental health and the journey to healing
This post is very different from what I usually write about. It is deeply personal. I’m writing it because as my friend Tim Banks taught me last year on my podcast, talking about mental health issues in public is important. Even those of us who seemingly have our shit together may be suffering in private. Talking about mental health is not a sign of weakness. It is healing. I want to write about this so that others who may have gone through something similar can maybe find some comfort in knowing that they’re not alone in their struggles.
On October 27th 2022, almost 2 years ago at the time of this writing, under the cover of darkness, I closed the door to my hotel room in Detroit, and headed home. I had been there for my first-ever KubeCon, as part of my first-ever role as a developer advocate. Unfortunately, my trip had been cut short. You see, I was heading home to watch my mother die.
My stomach was in knots the entire way home. I couldn’t stop crying. I cried on the cab ride to the airport. I cried as I waited in line for security. I cried on the plane ride. I cried on the train ride home from the airport. I cried in the car as my husband drove me to the hospital.
My mom had cancer. Ovarian cancer. The cruelty of it all was that she’d had an ovary and a half removed almost 30 years earlier, and the cancer chose to attack her remaining half ovary.
I didn’t even want to be at the conference. Days before I was set to leave, my mom took a turn for the worse. I told her I didn’t want to leave her. And yet, even in her state of extreme pain, she insisted that I go. I needed to go. It was important for my career. She always wanted me to have a career. This was important to her. So I went. I went for her.
My mom had gone to the emergency room the day before she died, due to an alarmingly high heart rate. She was never to return home. My sister went to the hospital to stay with my mom that evening so that my dad could go home to get some rest. She called me from there late at night to tell me that I should fly home ASAP. The doctors had determined that the cancer had spread to her liver and that her body was slowly shutting down. She didn’t have long.
By the time I got to my mom, she had been transferred to the palliative ward. Nothing prepared me for what I saw. She was unconscious. Head tilted back. Mouth wide open. Shallow breathing. So helpless. So undignified. I cried uncontrollably at first sight of her. She never regained consciousness, yet she moaned from her pain. Nurses tried to manage the pain to make her more comfortable. I held her hand. I tried to comfort her. That’s all I could do.
I was with her as she drew her last breath. We all were: my dad, my sister, and my daughter. It was agonizing, and yet I felt this huge sense of relief. Her pain had finally stopped. She’d been in a lot of pain in her last few days of life.
Those first few days and weeks following her death were tough. But my dad, my sister, my daughter, and I comforted each other and we somehow made it through. My husband was an absolute rock. Friends and relatives offered comfort, and I am so grateful for that. But for the most part I didn’t take them up on it because I just didn’t know what to say or how to act.
We had her funeral. It was unbelievably hard. But it was also a massive relief when it was over. We got some closure. I zombied on for those first few weeks. I took a bit of time off of work. My team was amazingly supportive and gave me space. But work, along with bouldering, gave me something to do, and kept my mind off of my pain and off of the guilt. Could I have been a better daughter? Did I do enough in her last few weeks of life? Why didn’t I get her recipes from her while she was still alive? I should have recorded her telling her stories while she still could. But I didn’t. Because that meant admitting that I was losing her, and I was too scared to do that.
Gradually, that gut-wrenching pain went away, and I eventually found a rhythm in my new reality. But you don’t forget, and neither does your body. Birthdays and holidays hit hard. And sometimes, out of the blue, certain conversations would trigger emotions that seemed to come out of nowhere. To add to it all, starting the year that she died, and every year since, without fail, my body goes through what I can only describe as a massive physiological reaction to the trauma of her illness and subsequent death. It happens twice a year. It starts in August, which coincides with when her health took a turn for the worst, and continues until end of October, which coincides with when she died. The symptoms usually pass after that, and return to haunt me the same time the following year.
In October 2023, close to the one year anniversary of her death, it hit me super hard. I’d wake up in the middle of the night feeling like my stomach wanted to spew out its contents. After a few weeks of restless nights and of being absolutely terrified of going to sleep, I sought help. I found myself a therapist. The last time I had a therapist was 10 years earlier, and he helped me form healthy boundaries in my relationship with my mom. This new therapist has helped me deal with my grief. She has helped me learn how to talk about my feelings, to identity when things start getting out of control for me emotionally, and to center myself when I feel it starting to come up. And she has helped me deal with my complex feelings towards my mother.
We tend to deify people when they die. We put them up on a pedestal, and we forget all of the bad shit that they have done. I think that it does them a great disservice. We are all imperfect beings, and our qualities and flaws define us.
I’ve seen people morph into their loved ones once their loved one dies. They sacrifice their own personality in order to keep the deceased’s memory alive. I saw my mom do that after my maternal grandmother died. It was unhealthy, to say the least. I want to remember my mom as a whole person: the good and the bad.
I never had a chance to eulogize my mom at her funeral. We had a Catholic funeral for her, and according to the priest who presided over her mass, only one person was allowed to deliver the eulogy (I’m still bitter about this). My younger sister ended up writing and delivering the eulogy. I had meant to write up a eulogy for myself, just to have some closure, but I wasn’t ready at the time. Today, I’m finally ready. And so, here goes. The eulogy I couldn’t bring myself to write until now.
My mother was a complicated woman. She was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, into a life of chaos. By age 19, my maternal grandmother had gotten married, become a widow, and had a child. My grandmother re-married a much older man, but their relationship was tumultuous and he wasn’t great with money. Money was tight.
She learned to fight for things at a young age. She learned to fight off bullies. The only way to get a good education in Brazil was in private school, which my grandmother couldn’t afford, so my mom’s schooling was financed by scholarships, which meant that she needed to keeping good grades in order to keep the scholarship.
She desperately wanted to leave Brazil, and she did – three times! The last time was when our family moved to Portugal in the late ’80s, before we eventually settled in Canada. The 4 of us living in Canada so far from our extended family and culture made her appreciate the importance of preserving that culture at home.
She was trained as a teacher and worked on her master’s in early childhood education at Boston University, but never ended up working. Instead, she chose to stay at home to raise my sister and me. But that didn’t stop her from putting her degree to good use. Summer holidays were like summer school. My spelling and grammar are pretty good thanks to her. (Though yes, my writing is very colloquial on my blog posts. 🤪) And my multiplication tables are forever drilled into my head after spending the summer of before grade 3 memorizing them.
She was a super mom and would’ve given anything to ensure our happiness and well-being. But she was also a very strict parent. Drove me nuts. Homework had to be done right away after coming home from school. Excellent marks were a must. Strict bedtime was enforced in elementary and high school. Even when I lived at home in my last 2 years of university, I had a curfew…though I managed to negotiate a better curfew than my sister’s one. 🙃
She taught me how to drive stick on our little white 1991 Honda Civic hatchback. When I stalled the car at a stop sign or hill, she’d quickly trade places with me after I got too flustered to start up the car again. 😳 She only let me drive that particular car solo once – when she and my dad were out of town for a week and I needed to get to and from my summer job.
She was no gourmet chef, but she made some wonderful comfort food: pudim de leite condensado; brigadeiro; bacalhau; homemade French fries; rice, beans, and farofa; chicken strogonoff; and some curry chicken recipe that she totally made up and which tasted amazing. Ketchup and paprika were often her secret ingredient.
She adored history and travelling. She managed to drag my dad to a number of different destinations around the world in spite of the fact that my dad had mega travel fatigue from so much work-related travel.
She loved museums, especially art museums. She usually got on my case because I didn’t love art the way she did. She also got on my case because I didn’t watch enough documentaries, in her opinion. (Apparently podcasts don’t count? 🫠)
She hated that I was a potty mouth, and so whenever I visited, I suppressed my swearing. I also never used to swear in Portuguese. I only started doing that after she died. Now I chuckle to myself and think of her giving me an evil stare every time I swear in Portuguese. 😆😆
She had an alcoholic uncle and therefore thought that drinking was evil. Which meant evil stares if I even contemplated drinking during meals at my parents’ place as an adult. So I never drank alcohol around her. Now when my dad visits, we enjoy the occasional cider together.
She was a master bargainer who negotiated a sweet deal on my first car. She’d walk into jewelry stores and immediately and unabashedly ask if they offered seniors’ discounts. If my daughter and I happened to be with her, we’d slowly back the hell out of the store and pretend we didn’t know her. I actually thought of her recently, after I was involved in some negotiations that ended well in my favour. She would’ve been so proud! 💜
As much as she drove me nuts and drove me to therapy (and also called my therapist an idiot – of course, because mental health is so stigmatized in her generation) she was my mother and I love her.
Did I agree with all of her parenting decisions? Nope. In fact, many of my parenting decisions are the opposite of what she did. But I don’t resent her. Because as a parent, I know that we try to make the best possible decisions for our kids based on our experiences and on the information that we have on hand. That’s all we can ever do.
My mom would’ve never condoned this post. She would’ve lectured me about having said too much. “What would others think?” she’d ask, exasperated. And yet, it was also so important to her for me to be my own person. So I guess that this post is proof that I am my own person.
She raised my sister and me to take pride in our work, to not take shit from anyone, to be independent, and to have successful careers and meaningful relationships. Mission accomplished. I think that she would’ve been proud of what I’ve accomplished in the last 2 years. I got to travel to cool places for work, give talks at prestigious conferences. She would’ve been tickled to hear that I spoke at Open Source Summit in Vienna and that I gave a keynote at KCD Porto this past September. My parents were supposed to visit Porto in 2020, but then COVID hit, and they never made it there.
So yeah, mom, you were right about KubeCon. Though that trip was cut short, I made some amazing connections during my time at the conference. How did you know??
For all your faults, you also had many wonderful qualities which I will forever remember and cherish. I miss you, mom. You’re never far from my thoughts. 💔
