My Ultimate Inspiration Comes From My Best Friend.

My dad let both my big brother and I share a short something in my mama’s honor before he gave the eulogy at her memorial service. My brother told a great story– he has an awesome gift of being able to make people laugh, insanely, despite life’s darkest moments– it moved the audience and also, of course, had them chuckling. The big guy, who’s now a software developer by day and stand-up comedian by night, credited my mama for buying him his first comedy magazine, Mad Magazine. He was home sick one day as a kid and she returned home from errands with medicine, soup and the magazine that sparked his love for comedy. She rocked at the doin’ the mom thang. I chose to read a part of a script from my mama and I’s favorite TV show, Gilmore Girls. Weird… I know. It was a segment from the speech given by the daughter, Rory, at her character’s high school graduation. And, it perfectly describes my mom. I’d used it before in tons of captions for pictures of us on Facebook and Instagram.

It felt right to read this in front of a church full of people who knew and loved my mama.

“But my ultimate inspiration comes from my best friend, the dazzling woman from whom I received my initials and my life’s blood, Susan Maynard Doan. My mother never gave me any idea that I couldn’t do whatever I wanted to do or be whomever I wanted to be. She filled our house with love and fun and books and music, unflagging in her efforts to give me role models from Jane Austen to Eudora Welty to Carole King. As she guided me through these incredible twenty-four years, I don’t know if she ever realized that the person I most wanted to be was her. Thank you, Mom: you are my guidepost for everything.”

I Want My Mommy.

RORY: All I could think of the minute you left was “I want my mommy.” I haven’t thought that since I was two.

LORELAI: That’s natural.

RORY: I’m eighteen. I can sign contracts, I can vote, I can fight for my country. I mean, I’m an adult. Adults don’t want their mommies.

LORELAI: Yes, they do, honey. I’m not a good example, but –

RORY: Everything’s so foreign. I have to share a bathroom. I’ve never shared a bathroom with anyone but you. So I’m gonna be running into people in the bathroom, we’re gonna have to make small talk. I don’t know any bathroom small talk.

LORELAI: Um. . .gee, your hair smells terrific?

RORY: You didn’t socialize me properly. You made me a mama’s girl. Why don’t I hate you? Why don’t I want to be away from you? It’s going to be very hard to be Christiane Amanpour broadcasting live from a foxhole in Tehran with my mommy. I guess you’re just gonna have to learn how to operate a camera ’cause I’ll need you there with me.

LORELAI: I would do that.

RORY: And how did I end up at Yale? I mean, I let Grandma and Grandpa manipulate me right out of Harvard and into Yale. That’s how strong-willed I am. I know nothing about Yale.

LORELAI: Not so – you’ve memorized its entire history.

RORY: How can you be so fine with this? You left here without a care in the world.

LORELAI: That’s not true.

RORY: You couldn’t wait for me to get out of the house. What were you doing when I paged you – turning my room into a sewing room? I should hate you, not miss you. Do something to make me hate you.

LORELAI: Uh. . .go Hitler!

(One of Mama’s favorite Gilmore Girls episodes, 4.02: The Lorelais’ First Day at Yale)

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I couldn’t agree more. Life just isn’t fun without Mama. It’s just not. I feel robbed. So many others, too, feel robbed. My Aunt texted me yesterday, saying how she feels robbed of spending retirement visiting, shopping and knitting (well, my Aunt knitting while Mama pretends) together, my dad is robbed not only of growing old along with someone but also of the only person who remembers all the stories they’d collected during 30-years together, my mom’s besties are robbed of decades together spent aging gracefully (and disgracefully, bc it’s them, ha) while giggling through it all, my big brother is robbed of having the mother who– despite not sharing an ounce of DNA and completely by choice– raised him and loved him and lit up outer space laughing at his jokes, my brother and I’s kids (not, like, our kids together… like, kids w/ our spouses… this isn’t GOT… also, I feel like I have to explain this abnormally often in conversations) will be robbed of a Nana who couldn’t wait to spoil them and who wanted nothing more than to be a grandma to her very lucky (and not inbreed) gran-babies, my future husband (or cat) will be robbed of meeting the woman who made me… me and will never know the person who has filled the most space in my life, and I am robbed of the many, many more words we would’ve spoken and the tons of fun adventures we would’ve found, together.