Jessica Barraco: Moving Through Motherless Milestones

photo via Jessica Barraco

As Jessica Barraco says in the book trailer to her memoir, The Butterfly Groove, she always knew who her mother was—but because her mother had died when Jessica was still a young girl, there were many unanswered questions about the past that had made her who she was… and that’s what Jessica set out to investigate. In this guest essay, she explains how she hasn’t just filled out her understanding of her mother’s life; she’s also gained a richer understanding of how her mother continues to be a presence in her own life.

One year for a birthday present, someone gave me a vintage album of my mom’s favorite song: “Cherry Bomb” by John Mellencamp. It was beautiful, and such a collector’s item. The original recording happened to take place during the year and month I was born: August of 1987. It was meant to be a sweet gesture, but the truth was, my heart sunk and my eyes filled with tears, and I couldn’t understand how such a nice gesture could make me feel so distraught. The whole next day, I learned a harsh reality to losing my mom at twelve years old: Every happy moment in my life will be bittersweet. No matter the joy, it will inevitably sink in that my mother will not be there to enjoy whatever it is with me; to see me grow, to watch me smile; and that no matter how you slice it, that is so very sad.

Always being an ambitious person both personally and professionally, I often pictured milestones: my first job, book release, wedding, birth of my children. And I can’t think of any of these moments without seeing the obligatory empty chair that my mom should be filling. The daily phone call I don’t get to make that so many others take for granted. The reassuring glance I have almost forgotten. I can get easily overwhelmed imagining any one of these moments.

My mom passed away sixteen years ago after suffering from cancer and its horrendous complications for nearly twenty years of her life, and for all of mine. I learned a lot about my mom while researching and writing The Butterfly Groove, but I was also able to imagine how she handled her own life’s milestones. I am comforted by now knowing the true series of events in her life that I wasn’t aware of previously. Along with the truth, I was fortune enough to learn how these experiences both inspired and influenced her choices: whether positively, negatively, or seemingly not at all. I call it learning the emotional genealogy of a person. I always knew where I came from, but I wanted to know from whom I came from.

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2 November 2015 | guest authors |