“A fragment of his mother…”

Posted on 13 May, 2019

“I’ve never been a ‘fragment’ of anyone before. I didn’t realise what an extraordinary privilege it is. Nobody can replace the one who is lost, but with an open heart you can let in pieces of other people.”

Last week, I asked a friend in his mid-twenties how his new job was going. I knew it was a big and longed-for promotion and he was excited about this step in his career. He replied effusively about how much he was loving it all, and apologised for ‘gloating’. Then he said something that will stick with me for a long time: ’Every mum I meet becomes a fragment of my mother. I collect mums like Pokemon.’

Dillon is my little boy’s mentor for the grief-education program, Camp Magic. Like Seb, Dillon lost a parent to a heart attack. Like me, he’d been the first to find his loved one, and experienced the trauma associated with that.

All the time that Dillon and his younger brother have been floundering in shock and then finding their way through grief, so have we. We’ve been treading the same difficult paths in two different places—our families both undone by the same disease.

Then he volunteered to help children going through this, and that’s when we turned up, apprehensive and hopeful, desperate for someone to really, ‘get it’—finding someone in search of a fragment of what he’s lost.

Dillon’s significant role in my son’s life is clear. My role in Dillon’s hadn’t been. I’ve never been a ‘fragment’ of anyone before. I didn’t realise what an extraordinary privilege it is. Nobody can replace the one who is lost, but with an open heart you can let in pieces of other people.

In my imagination, Dillon is dashing around Sydney with some sort of ‘Substitute Mum App’. He’s collecting little pieces of friends’ mums and older colleagues and mums from camp — knowing even if he catches every one of us, collectively we’ll never be enough.

It got me thinking about the women in my own life who are fragments of my mum. She’s still here, but with a diminished capacity to help and understand through dementia. It’s the ‘news’ you miss telling her — the hard-won career highlights, too complicated to explain. The confusing problems.

Her friend of many decades checked in with me often after I lost Jeff, knowing mum had to be repeatedly told of his death. There are other older women I could turn to if I need help — the mums of friends, older cousins, distant relations on Facebook, neighbours—the elders in my village who’d love to be incorporated into this jigsaw puzzle family as it grows.

And now I’m thinking more deliberately about how to help Seb collect some fragments of his dad. Good men who’ll act as role models in his life. Men who’ll never replace his father but might help soften some of the blow. Fill part of the gap.

What a beautiful ecosystem this can be, offering each of us vital roles in younger people’s lives whether we’re mothers or not, and offering us motherly support when we need it.

Dillon sees himself collecting mums like Pokemon. I see us as little pieces of stained glass. Fragments of colour, through which some of the world’s light can pour in. He’ll never assemble us in the exact shape of his mum. He won’t want to. But together we can create something tangible and beautiful, each of us wanting the best for him, proud of his achievements, always here when he needs us.