Omissions.

A few days ago, my Aunt told me that she wished my Mom could read my posts and that she would have been proud of my writing ability. It made me happy to read that. I sometimes forget that my Aunt and my Mom knew each other the way I know my sisters now. I only have my very childlike experience of my mother, for she left us girls at a young age.

In high school, I was drawn to working on the yearbook my senior year. I enjoyed the creativity, I did some illustrations for the book and helped to conceive the overall scheme with other classmates on the yearbook staff. When I went to college, I was drawn again to the yearbook. I didn't consider myself a “journalist” – too shy to actually do interviews or ferret out a news story. I preferred the graphical nature of the yearbook and the longer view narrative of an event.

My senior year, I was editor in chief of the yearbook. Somehow, I fooled enough of the staff to elect me as editor. I was bossy and opinionated. Not much has changed.

What no one told me was that my Mom was also the editor of her college yearbook. I had no idea. I was drawn to it, sure, but hadn't a clue. My Dad didn't say anything. My first thought was a sense of bewilderment. How could you not tell me? But it's tempered with a small bit of gratitude. Had I known I was following in her footsteps, would I have felt pressure? A sense of competition? Inadequacy? Probably, yes to all of the above.

It's maddening to learn in middle age that you had more in common than you ever knew with the woman who birthed you and then left you when you were seven. I found out because my parents were divesting of some family possessions and my Dad decided I should get Mom's yearbooks because of the commonality.

My Aunt's comment struck another chord. Where my first impression was four part harmony, the second impression was a minor key. A bitter melody. An angry note. The adult in me can intellectualize my mother's suicide, and therapy sure helped, but the seven year old inside me will never get over the feeling of abandonment and rejection, despite knowing everything I know. How could she be proud of me? She never knew me. She knew a seven year old girl. An unformed person with little sprouts of promise, but whose talents and personality traits weren't even saplings yet.

Still, I like to think she would be proud.