My Mother Died (And then she Actually Died)

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

I always anticipated this day would come, but I never could have predicted how it actually played out. I always imagined I’d just get a call or an email from a stranger a few months after it happened and I’d say, “oh, it happened,” — but that’s not how it went at all.

I was estranged from my mother for 24 years, which is longer than we had ever been familial. My mother was complicated…