but not forgotten

By Jennie Renner | Photos Provided

As we recognize Mother’s Day this month, we are holding space for those whose mothers are no longer with us. Three women shared their experiences of loss, what they have learned, and how we all might do better to support those who are grieving.

Gina Kostoff’s mom, Marie, passed away at 82 years old. Although almost 23 years have passed by since her death, Kostoff said she still misses her every day.

“My grief has changed over the years,” she said. “Those first few years are always heartbreaking. You’re mourning what you don’t have in your life anymore, instead of remembering all the wonderful things that they brought to your life while they were here.”

For the first several years after losing her mother, Kostoff said she chose to ignore the Mother’s Day holiday. Now, she celebrates it.

“I usually buy some flowers in bright, beautiful colors because [my mom] loved bright, beautiful colors. That’s how I remember and celebrate her I wish she was here, but I know she’s watching from heaven,” she said.

Kostoff now lives in the house that her parents built and lived in and continues her mom’s tradition of hosting the family’s Christmas celebration. The first couple of years after her mom died, nobody sat in her chair at the dining room table during the holiday meal. Kostoff lit a candle and set it at her mother’s place. She said she could feel her mom’s presence there with the family.

“You walk into the house I grew up in, that I live in now, and you can just feel both my parents’ presence, especially my mom’s,” she said. “You feel that warmth envelop you and that’s who she was. She was a loving woman of faith. And she wanted everyone to feel comfortable in her home. And that’s what I’ve tried to do in that home.”

Kostoff enjoys honoring her mom by doing a lot of the same things that she did when she was alive, including cooking a nice meal for the family. “Everybody gets their favorite treats that my mom used to prepare for us,” she said. “So, there’s a little bit of her in every holiday celebration.”

She still has a lot of the furniture that her parents owned, including her mom’s favorite chair, which she sits in every day. Her mom also loved the sunroom on the back of the house so on beautiful mornings, she’ll take a cup of coffee and sit out there and think of her and how much she enjoyed being in that sunroom, especially in the spring.

“It was her favorite time of year with the flowers blooming, the trees budding, and the birds singing. She loved to watch everything come alive,” said Kostoff. “So I feel her presence every day.”

She offered these thoughts for anyone who is still in that initial stage of profound grief. “It does get better; It doesn’t go away it’s always there but it does get better,” she said. “And you focus more on the joy that that person brought to your life, and the beautiful memories, and all of the things that they instilled in you rather than the sting of not having them there.”

While Casey was home for Christmas break in 2010, her mom, Vicky, got bacterial meningitis. Hoffmann was in her senior year at Ball State and spent much of her last semester in Fort Wayne at the hospital with her mom. In March, Vicky was able to come home. She was there for about a week and a half before she passed away.

Her mom was 54; Hoffmann was 22. It has now been 12 years since her mom passed away. She said while she still feels the pain of her mother’s absence, letting go of the notion of what she thought grief was supposed to be like has helped.

“I thought [grief] was kind of like a linear thing. You know, you go through stages and once you go through that stage, you’re done with it, and then you move on to the next stage,” said Hoffmann. “But that’s not how it goes at all. And I kind of struggled with that for a while. There’s no timeline and it’s not something that you get through to get to the end. It’s just a process that kind of [takes a] lifetime.”

Once she was able to let go of her expectations about grief, Hoffmann started embracing her emotions. She was angry for a long time. She also found her grief showing up in unexpected ways. Sometimes she would just feel “off” and didn’t know where it was coming from. Now she recognizes those times as another way that her sadness was coming through.

“With time, you gain a different perspective,” she said. “We were so close; now I can be thankful for that, and not angry. I can see that grief and love go hand in hand. I can be thankful that I hurt as badly as I do sometimes, because I know how much love was there to begin with.”

When her grief was new, Hoffmann didn’t want to hear what anybody had to say. She appreciated those who would just be present with her and not try to say anything because there really wasn’t anything that anyone could say that made things better. She said knowing how helpful this was to her, she has used the same approach when comforting friends going through similar situations. Hoffmann called it “the gift of presence just sitting with them and their darkness.”

“I think the gift of presence is really powerful,” she said. “Even today when I’m having a rough day [I’m] thankful that people are willing to do that, and not try to fix it … just sitting.”

Courtney Tritch

Courtney Tritch’s mom, Jennifer, passed away unexpectedly at the age of 68 in July of 2016.

“There is no one way to grieve,” said Tritch. “I think it’s hard when the person passes away suddenly because it’s just such a shock that it takes you a while to get your head around it.”

Tritch doesn’t mind sharing what she’s been through, though. One of the things she said her mother taught her was to “talk about stuff.”

“I think what people don’t talk a lot about when it comes to grief is that we’re humans. And odds are, we have complicated relationships,” she said. “I loved my mom. She was my person. When I was little, we had our own secret language for a while. I just always felt like no one got me like she did.”

As Tritch got older, her relationship with her mother changed. Sometimes they were close and sometimes they weren’t. While she misses her mom, their complicated relationship has made grieving more difficult.

“Because our society doesn’t teach people that it’s okay to talk about, I think that that leads to a lot of inner turmoil and unresolved emotions,” she said. Tritch believes that we can grow and learn from people in our lives even after they’ve passed. She said she learned so much from her mom about being your own person.

“My mom had a bajillion different careers and raised five children. She had a radio show, she had all these different things, and so that really shaped who I am,” she said. “I think that if we can take the long view in thinking about ‘what are the things that still live on through me because of her influence?’ I think that’s what helps keep the person alive.”

When Tritch was upset about something, she said that one of her favorite things that her mom would say was, ‘Okay, what speech do you want?’ She said that was her way of saying, ‘Do you want me to encourage you to keep doing this or do you need me to talk you out of it?’ Tritch has used this approach with friends who are grieving.

“It is good to ask the person if they are ready to talk (‘What speech do you need?’ as my mom would say), or if they need to be distracted, but there is more to it than that,” said Tritch. “If they are in a place where they don’t know, then it’s important to ask if you can take the lead. Look around and see what needs to be done and offer to do something specific rather than just saying ‘let me know if there’s anything you need’ and walking away.” a