Mom Radar

Gena Johnson

Word Count 727

Of all the people who have ever loved me, hurt me, or damaged me—there was no one like my mother.

Her story is too complicated to explain. The stories from her childhood are hard to hear. But by now, I don’t even know which ones are true, which are half-true, or which were borrowed from someone else’s life. Maybe it doesn’t matter. What I do know is that she had adventure in her bones. Her life could have been something magical if she hadn’t picked up so much baggage along the way. But the destruction she caused—intentional or not—was too much, and I distanced myself as best I could.

But there was no getting rid of her. 

Her determination to stay connected transcended reason.  She always knew everything. She could feel it. We called it Mom Radar.

When I was sad, she knew. When something good happened, she knew. In high school, when my prom date backed out and I hid under the bed in the guest room to cry, she found me. I’ll never forget the sight of her face as she lifted the bed curtain and peered down at me—knowing everything without me saying a word.

Years later, we were completely estranged. But she still knew everything.

She called me out of the clear blue the night before my son was born. I only answered the phone because I thought it was someone else. She didn’t even know I was pregnant.

Last September, my fiancé had just proposed, I was settling into a new house, and I was—maybe—vibrating a little higher than usual. I got ready for bed, and drifted off to sleep.  Then I very clearly heard her voice say my name. It was unmistakable. She was calling for me.

I opened my eyes.  Was it a dream?  I don’t even believe in that stuff. But it rattled me enough that I called my sister:

“Have you talked to Mom lately?”

Of course she hadn’t. No one had talked to her in years.

A few days later, we heard from an aunt that our mother was in the hospital. The night I heard her voice? That was the night she fell, hit her head, and lay unconscious in her bathroom. A neighbor found her the next day.

Against my better judgment, I went to see her in the hospital. It had been twenty years since I’d laid eyes on her.

She was sleeping when I arrived. Old. Frail. Nothing like the larger-than-life presence I remembered. But when she opened her eyes, she looked at me like no time had passed at all.

“Oh, hello, Bean,” she said, like she’d just seen me that morning.

I sat across from her. We looked at each other for a long time. Finally, I said,  “Well, I’m here. What did you want?”

She smiled. “Well, I was talking to Grandma the other day about how I wanted to see you.” (My grandmother died fifteen years ago.)

Then she added, “And Grandma said I could just sit up, leave my body, and come find you. So I did! And here you are!”

Honestly, that made perfect sense. Everything about my mother had always been extra. A relative once said, “Of course she had twins. Leave it to her—even her pregnancy is extra.”

She had never liked my ex-husband. She’d been campaigning for me to leave him since day one, though her motivations were always complicated. She asked how I’d been, and I didn’t want to give her anything real. But I told her anyway: “We got divorced.”

She sighed and looked down. No judgment. No satisfaction. Just, “Oh Bean. I’m sorry.”

We talked for a while longer. She told me she felt her life was nearing its end. She told me she’d had a companion for the last decade. I was genuinely glad for her.

“Where is he?” I asked. “Can I meet him?”

“He died,” she said matter-of-factly.

I was thinking about all the epic love stories she’d told me over the years.  And I couldn’t help asking her “Who was the love of your life?”

She paused. Thought about it. Finally said, “I suppose I didn’t have one.”My heart broke a little.  I had loved her, just like everyone else. But she was too hot to touch. A shared experience with almost anyone who knew her. And yet, here I was at her bedside. That’s what daughters do.

But more than obligation, it felt inevitable. Our story had always had a gravitational pull. Because when it came to my mother, there was just no escaping her.

Gena is a nonprofit leader, public speaker and storyteller who believes in the power of vulnerability and humor to bring people together.  Whether on stage or on the page, she invites people into deeper conversations about mental health, motherhood, grief, and the invisible roles women are asked to perform in both public and private life.