How I Lost My Mom

By Hannah Sterkel, 18, Missouri

Creeping into my parents’ bedroom, I stand on my tiptoes to peer over the bed at them. My mom is holding the biggest teddy bear I’ve ever seen. 

“Randy, I am not putting him in the closet! My dad gave me Paddington when I was six years old and he has been with me ever since! For God’s sake, he even came to college with me and sat in my dorm room! He is not living in the closet.”

“I know how important he is to you, Steph, but we have been married for eight years and a teddy bear still sleeps in our bed every night.”

Not able to contain my excitement anymore, I shriek, “Mommy! Daddy! Let me take care of him!” 

My mother is skeptical but eventually relents and gives me the bear. At four years old, I do not yet understand how my mother’s abnormal attachment to this bear, or any comfort object for that matter, is detrimental to her ability to be my mother; she clings to comfort as if it were the string holding her up over an endless canyon. For her, alcohol transformed into a synonym of comfort. This attachment to her teddy bear–my teddy bear, now–is indicative of a much greater need for reassurance than any teddy bear, drink, husband, or daughter could offer.

***

I sneak out of my bedroom and down the stairs, hearing my sister Hope’s muffled sobs coming from my parents’ bedroom. My toes freeze on the marble floor as I creep down the hallway. Pressing my forehead against the doorframe, I suppress a scream and run upstairs. It looked like my mom was sleeping, but the panic and the nausea convinced me I was wrong. Finally, I get into my bedroom and shut the door behind me. The walls are closing in on me. Since I am supposed to be sleeping, the lights are out. No one can help me as I feel the walls pushing against my body and the panic pushing into my lungs.

***

“Hannah, we need to have a conversation.” I hang upside down from Hope’s bunk bed. 

“Little Dear, please look at me.” I hear my dad’s voice crack and this is what gets my attention. I turn around and bounce down onto the overstuffed pink comforter. I cross my legs like I was taught to do in school when we are told to “pay attention” during story time on the scratchy carpet. 

“Okay…” he takes a deep breath that wobbles on the way out. Hope enters the room and, without so much as a word, grabs my hand. “Mommy is sick. She needs to go away for a little while to get treatment. She will come back as soon as she can.”

“Okay.” I say as I slowly pull my hand from Hope’s and climb into my dad’s arms. I whisper into his ear, “Are you going too?” He starts crying now. I didn’t mean to upset him. He holds me tight and whispers back, “I am not going anywhere. Nothing in the world will ever separate me from you. Do you understand?” I nod. 

“Is Mommy going to die? How did she get sick?” 

“No, Little Dear. Mommy is going to recover and be just fine. She ingested something that made her very ill but once she gets it out of her body, she will be better.” There’s no way I could’ve known he was reassuring me of something that he was spending every restless night praying for. 

***

Hope is trying to hide her panic under a transparent mask of familial responsibility. Her voice shakes as she rushes me under the covers. “Mom and Dad will see you in the morning. They’re just busy right now.” Knowing that I had been reduced to a chore, I do as I was told–or at least pretend to. I hide under my polka-dotted covers with my ancient teddy bear in my arms and count my breaths. 

Regardless of the fact that I had yet to read a whole chapter book by myself at this point, I had heard of stories like these. Stories where someone lies to protect someone else. Stories where life-altering news is postponed. 

***

My dad holds me to his hip and Hope to his chest as we watch my mom’s plane take off. He has just lost the love of his life, but none of us knew that yet. I listen to my dad’s heart beat through his soft sweater and hold Paddington tight behind his back. Hope’s nails are digging into her palms and the feeling of betrayal is clear on her face. She is hurt, but all she can feel right now is anger. My dad is crying, not even so much for himself as he is crying for his two girls, who will have to go who knows how long without a mother. That type of ache is all too familiar to the man whose mother died when he was only an infant. I just want my mom back. 

***

My mother sits uncomfortably on her cloud of a bed. She digs in her luggage, throwing swimsuits and sweatpants beside her, for the letter that I wrote her. The paper is creased, the words scribbled in crayon and barely legible, saying: “Dear Mommy, I miss you and I love you so much. Please get better. Love, Hannah.” 

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This piece began as a poem, but I then expanded on it when I discovered there was too much left unsaid. I drew on my own experiences growing up with an alcoholic mother and a father thrown into being a single parent. 

Photo by Annie Spratt