The Missing Puzzle Piece

Chelsea’s mom and unborn brother died in a car accident on Chelsea’s first birthday, leaving little Chelsea and her grief-stricken father behind to piece back together their shattered life. As a child, Chelsea longs for a mom – a living mom – and she’s thrilled when her dad remarries a wonderful woman named Shawna. But even when she’s surrounded by love, Chelsea still finds herself trying to fill a gaping hole in her heart.

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Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

Chelsea: I definitely had those nights where I would cry myself to sleep, and I would just beg for a mom. And I wanted her so badly. At the time, I didn't have enough insight and ability to reflect to know what it was, but looking back, it was very much a hole in my heart that could never be filled, like I was never quite full, and so I felt a little lost.

I’m Nora McInerny, and this is “Terrible, Thanks for Asking.” 

I firmly believe that you can love what you have and miss what you had. I believe that in the wake of loss, you can build something new from the broken pieces.

And I know, in my heart, from personal experience and observation … that it sucks.

Today’s guest, Chelsea, knows that as well as anyone. She knew it even before she knew it, when she was a little girl with an ache in her chest.

Chelsea’s life changed forever before she was even old enough to understand why, even old enough to understand what happened. 

Chelsea’s mother, Linda, died on Chelsea’s first birthday, along with Chelsea’s unborn brother.

Chelsea: My party was the day before, so I have lots of pictures from the actual party. It was in our backyard. My mom was there. My dad was there. My whole family was there. 

The next day, Chelsea’s mom headed out to run a last-minute errand for the birthday girl.

Chelsea: She was driving. She was pregnant with my brother at the time. And it was a two-lane road. They were driving over a bridge. And some guy coming the other direction thought he saw something on the road and swerved into her lane and hit her head on.

Linda died from her injuries around 1 a.m. – about an hour after her baby girl turned one.  And just like that, Chelsea was a newly minted toddler without a mother. And her dad, Roger, was a single father mourning the loss of his wife and son.

Roger: Ohh, I was lost. I was shocked. I couldn't believe what was going on. I ... you know, honestly, I don't know. If I wouldn't have had a 1-year-old to take care of, I don't know what I would have done. But then the funeral came on a Friday, after the accident on Monday, and that next day everybody went back to their regular lives, but ours weren't the same. We didn't have a regular life at that point. I just remember looking at her and saying, “All right, kiddo, it’s just you and me now. I mean, there were times when I would drop her off at daycare, and I would be driving down the road thinking, you know, like a song would come on and it would make me sad, because it would remind me of her mom, and I'd think, “You know, I could just end all this agony very easily, just drive into a bridge abutment," you know? But then I'd sit there and say, “What good would that do? I got a 1-year-old. You know? It's like, that's more important, you know?” So you just move on and you just deal with it.

That’s what they do: Chelsea and Roger get on with it. He goes to work and picks his daughter up from daycare. He makes her dinner at night and gives her baths, reads her stories and tucks her in. He changes jobs to make sure he can be present for Chelsea. 

And he does all of this while carrying the weight of loss … while missing the woman he’d married and created a family with.

Roger: I still had her clothes in the closet and, you know, some would still smell of perfume and stuff. And sometimes I'd go in there and just sniff it just to kind of feel better, you know? Whatever. It was tough, but you know. I still had that little little girl sitting in the crib over there sleeping, and that meant the world to me too, so ...

Chelsea: He is my everything. He's my world. He's my best friend in every sense of the word. And I get so emotional when I think about him and when I talk about him, because he set aside his entire life to put all of his energy into me and raising me.

In the years following his wife’s death, Roger’s focus is on Chelsea – on making sure his daughter’s life is filled with fun and stability and love. 

But still, Chelsea has that ache, that longing for the mother she lost. 

And Roger has it, too, even if Chelsea is too young to see it. 

Roger: I probably cried every day for eight years, at least, where just something would set me off, and I would just break down and cry. 

For many, many years, dating is the last thing on Roger’s mind. But the older Chelsea gets, the more she wants a mom. All of her friends have them, and she wants one, too! She wants a LIVING mom. 

When she’s in second grade, Chelsea gets her wish … when she and her dad meet a wonderful woman named Shawna.

Roger: We actually met at a Brownie meeting. Because I was, like, the only male Brownie person, because everybody else had their mothers doing that. Apparently a bunch of them conspired to introduce me to Shawna.

Chelsea: One of my friend's moms brought in Shawna one day, and was like, “Hey, Roger and Chelsea! Here's this single woman!” 

Roger: You know, at first, I wasn't really having it. You know, it's like, who are these people? These people know me, but they don't really know me. So it's kind of like, you know, it's not like my best friends were trying to set me up with somebody. So at first I was kind of offended with that. 

Chelsea: They brought in Shawna, and he was like, “Nope, I'm not doing this. Like, I'm never marrying again. I, you know,  have everything that I need. I'm not going through that experience again.” But she kept calling and, you know, she really wanted to get to know him and me, even though we were a very broken family. And she'd heard the story, so she knew what she was getting herself into. And eventually he caved. And I remember they went on their first date to Ruby Tuesday. I was sitting on the bed and I was helping him pick out his outfit, and I picked out a pale blue sweater vest so that it would hide his little bit of a tummy that he had, because I thought it was more slimming. I don't know why, but I did. I was seven, eight years old or in second grade, so I didn't really know anything about fashion. 

Roger: She said, “Dad, you know, your stomach's getting a little big, you should wear a vest. It makes you look slimmer.” [laughs] I said, “Really? Really?” I’m getting dating advice from a kid? [laughs]

Chelsea: And I told him that he was not allowed to get ribs, because they would be messy and he would get rib barbecue sauce all over himself. And I was so excited. I thought it was so cool that he was going out on a date. And I was thrilled.

Here’s Shawna. 

Shawna: I said, “Well, for this to go any further, you know, we need to know. I mean, Chelsea is a big part of this. And so if that isn't going to work out, we need to know that right away.” And so our second date then was to Applebee's. We went out to dinner, and Chelsea liked the high table, so we sat at the high tables. And you know, I'm a teacher, so I talk to kids, and she was actually second grade at the time. And so those are the kinds of kids I dealt with. And I said, “Oh, when's your birthday?” And she said, “May 23rd.” And I said, “So is mine!” And so so we had the same birthday, and it's actually my dad's as well. So the three of us have that same birthday. And so then we were talking, and I said, you know, “Well, what's your middle name?” She said Lynn. And I said, “So is mine.” So there were, like, lots of weird little connections, you know, just in the beginning. So we did, you know, really from the very beginning, Chelsea was with us a lot, you know, because she was a really big part of Roger's life. And we just, we just included her in a lot of those things. And so from our very earliest times, you know, we were doing things like that together. Actually, the night that we got engaged, her grandparents had come over to watch her. And Roger and I were leaving, and she was playing a game on the computer. And as we're walking out, we're saying goodbye. And she said, “Oh, good luck, Dad.” And I thought, good luck … that's kind of a strange comment. So I was kind of thinking, maybe tonight’s the night.

Shawna and Roger get married, and Chelsea finally has the mom she’s always wanted. Shawna even legally adopts Chelsea as her own daughter. 

Their family is complete, and everything is perfect.

Annnnnd that’s the end of the episode!

[TTFA theme song fakeout]

But no, for a while, things really are great. Chelsea loves Shawna. She loves that her dad is happy. And then, Chelsea starts middle school.

I think almost every episode we make could have a section about a guest’s teenage years, because they’re formative and … horrible, often, for different reasons and in different ways.

For Chelsea, those tween-age years are when she really starts really grappling with the part of her identity that she lost when her mom died … the part of her that she feels herself losing more and more the older she gets. 

Chelsea: It was really– that was the hardest thing for me, is being in this stage of life where you're developing into who you'll be as an adult and forming your identity and trying on all these different hats, personality-type hats, to see what fits you and what feels right and true to your heart. And to not have 50% of who you are when you're trying to do that, it feels empty and relentlessly difficult – near impossible – in that moment. It was a constant pull between Shawna, my stepmom, and Linda, my birth mother. I do remember one moment. It was Shawna's first Mother's Day, when I was about 8 or 9 years old, and my dad and I had never celebrated Mother's Day for so many years. We had no idea what to do, and we had no idea how to honor a mom in our immediate family. And Shawna was so upset that day, but we just didn't know how. And so I remember that being … like, watching the emotions on her and just not quite getting it. And then there was another moment a couple of years later, when we sat down at the table and Shawna told me that she really would love it if I could call her mom instead of by her name. And I was so upset. And I remember later that night I was being sassy, and I said, “Okay, mother,” to something that she asked of me. And she's like, “No, not mother, just Mom. That would be really nice. And she was so delicate about it. But I was just so emotionally unstable as a teenager and so unwilling to adapt to having a mom again, because I was so used to it just being me and my dad.

When we desperately want something, we think we have a clear vision of what that “something” looks like. The image we conjure up in our head feels crisp, clear, solid. 

The real picture often turns out much blurrier than we expected. 

Shawna: I think the reality of a mother and the idea of a mother are two different things. A comment was made one time when I think I said something or disagreed with something, or it didn't go quite the way she had wanted. She said, “Well, I thought I was going to be getting a friend.” And I said, “Well,” I said, “You've got lots of friends. And you'll continue to have lots of friends. But that's not my job. My job is to be your mom.” And as much as she had ideas of how it was going to be, so did I. You have to give a person space. And I was a grown up. But it's hard not to take it personally.

We often think that because we’re witnessing the same events, the same moments as someone else, their understanding of what happened must be the same as ours. But if life is a movie, everyone is their own main character. Hand them the camera – see the story through their eyes – and the story changes. 

Roger and Shawna see the years they spent raising Chelsea together as years where they made a great effort to make sure that Chelsea knew as much about her mother as possible. 

Roger: We just told her about her, told her things that she did, you know, kept in touch with her mom's family. As a matter of fact, we'd go see them every summer. You know, we’d just pack up the car, and we'd go. And I'd let them tell stories about her mom, some of which I didn't even know. So, you know, so  … she learned, she learned about her mom from everybody – you know, both my family and her family. She wanted to ride horses, so I tried to make sure she could ride horses. Her mother used to ride horses, and train horses, and stuff like that. So I figured that was a natural interest that she may have, you know? 

Shawna: We tried to make sure pictures are around, things that were hers stayed for Chelsea, so that, you know, if she wanted them later. But then also trying to make sure she stayed connected with that side of her family, too.

But as a teenager, Chelsea doesn’t see it that way. Her mother is a stranger, a blank space. And as wonderful as her father is, as much as he’s her best friend in the world, he’s a vault that contains everything she wishes she knew about the mother she lost.

Chelsea: Growing up, my dad never really told me anything about my mom. I would ask and ask and ask, and the only thing he told me was that I walked like she did. And I would ask, I would beg, like, “Do I look like her?” Because I wanted to look like her so badly. And he’d be like, “No, not really.” And he wasn't lying. I'm a spitting image of my father. But I wanted so badly to have some connection to her. And I held on to the fact that I walked like her so tightly, like, I was so proud of myself for that. But it wasn't enough when you get to this point in your life where you're trying to figure out who you are and you're forming this identity and you're in this adolescent stage. I remember there was this one night where I was really struggling and missing my mom. And we had one picture of my mom enframed in our house, and I was a baby, and we were at a picnic. And I just remembered being, like, so upset that her life wasn't more celebrated in our house. And I just got so upset with my dad, like, “We have no pictures of her. We have all these pictures of Shawna, and we have all these pictures of Shawna’s family. We have one picture of my mom.” And on top of that, I had my stepmom and, you know, her family was within driving distance, so we would always go to see them. And it started to become so overwhelming, because it felt like she was taking over a spot that was never up for grabs. 

We’ll be right back.

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When she was eight years old, Chelsea wanted a mom – and her stepmom, Shawna, has done her best to bridge the space between a woman she never knew and the child that woman left behind. 

Now, as a teenager, Chelsea is struggling to cling to ANY piece of the mother she can’t remember.

Chelsea: I was missing that so much in my life. Like, I would meet new friends and I would tell them, like, “Oh, I was born in Puerto Rico,” like, you know, I would just lie about it, because I was trying to fill it in so much. And when 2007 hit, there was the recession, and so my family at the time couldn't afford to go up to New England, which is where my Puerto Rican side of the family lives. We wouldn't be able to go up to visit. So I just became more and more detached from that side of me at the time when I really, really deeply needed to connect with that side of me. And I just, I couldn't handle it. I was being pulled in so many different directions, and I just kind of had this identity crisis at that time. 

Unfortunately for Chelsea, this identity crisis coincides with the beginning of high school … a notoriously stable time for so many of us! But fortunately for Chelsea, she has the good luck to be placed in a health and fitness class taught by one of the most popular teachers in school: Mrs. B.

Chelsea: Everyone loved her. She was very well known in our community. I'd heard nothing but good things. I mean, all the students just raved about her. And I just happened to be put in her freshman health class. And so I was really excited to get to know her. I remember just being very happy that I was put into her class. She was just fun and she took her job really seriously. She really cared about health and safety and fitness. And so she really emphasized all of that in a way that really spoke to someone who was a freshman in high school. And so I was really drawn to her. And we all were. Everyone in her class was like, “Mrs. B is the best.” And she just had this air about her, and she was so down to earth, and so involved in her students’ lives and involved in the culture of the high school. Mrs. B. was always around. She was at the football games. She was at the basketball games. 

If you were blessed by the presence of a teacher like Mrs. B, you get it. You might even get why Chelsea signed up for Mrs. B’s next elective before finding out it was a lifeguarding course … and stayed in the class just because, hey, it’s Mrs. B!

Toward the end of Chelsea’s freshman year, Mrs. B. opens up to her students and tells them that her elderly mother is in declining health, and that it’s been a struggle. 

It’s something that Chelsea remembers when school is back in session the next year, and she and Mrs. B reconnect.

Mrs. B.: And she said, “Mrs. B, Mrs. B, how is your mom? How is your mom? I've been wondering all summer long how she is.” And I looked at her and I said, “Well, Chelsea, my mom passed away.”

Chelsea: You know, it's just instinctual when you care about someone to say, “Oh, I'm so sorry about that.” And so I did. And then she said, “Well, you would know how that feels.” And I was standing there, and I was, like, rattling through my memory. Did I tell her that my mom died? How did I …? Like, how does she know this? Like, I have known this woman for literally a year. I've taken one class with her. And I asked her, “How did you know that my mom died?” And she looked down, and it was like the longest silence I've ever experienced in my life. And she looked back up at me, and she had tears welling up in the backs of her eyes.

Mrs. B.: And I looked at her then, and I said, “Chelsea, I know. Because I was there that night with your mom.”

When Mrs. B takes the camera, Chelsea sees a part of the story she’s only ever seen in her imagination: the last night of her mother’s life. 

Mrs. B.: I actually was on my way to teach a CPR class that night. And there was one bridge going into the next town over. And the cars were stopped, and there was a young man in the middle of the road. And it was a student of mine. And he saw me, and he ran up and he said, “Mrs. B, Mrs. B, come quick, come quick. My mom needs help.” And I actually thought his mom was the one in the accident. But his mother was an ER nurse. And when I got out, I went down, and the box truck was blocking both sides of the bridge. There was only one way to get around, and that was to crawl under it. I bent down, and there was someone on the other side, And I said, you know, “I can help. Can I come under?” So I crawled under the truck, got to the other side. Saw the Jeep, and the mom was there, the ER nurse. And she said, “Get in.” I got in behind, in the back seat, and I inlined Linda and stabilized her neck. Of course, EMS was coming, but air EMS couldn't get there because of the box trucks. We had three different companies coming, and I was talking to Linda. I was right in her ear. And you know, I said, “You're going to be OK. You know, help is coming. We're working with you.” She kept asking for her husband. She kept asking for a little girl. She said, “The birthday cake. I need to go get the birthday cake.” She was on her way to get the birthday cake for Chelsea. For her birthday party. EMS came. They started cutting the roof off of the Jeep, and I was still with her, talking to her, and I promised we would get her husband there. When they put her in the helicopter to fly her to shock trauma, she was alive. And we knew she was … she was very pregnant. I was pretty shook up for a while and went to school the next day. Had taught all day. And I remember walking down the hall when school was over, and up the hallway walked three of the people from the ambulance company. And I could just tell by their faces. And they came up to me and they said, “We need to talk to you. We didn't want you to hear this on the street.” And they took me in a room and they told me that they had lost both the mom and the baby. My question was, “Did Roger get there?” And they said he did. And they worked feverishly to keep Linda with us. But I could only think of that little girl and her dad and what they went through at that time.

Chelsea: I just bawled. And we just hugged each other and held each other until I had to rush to my bus. And that was a moment that I'll never forget. It changed my life. But also, in the midst of this identity crisis and, you know, pulling away from Shawna, and having that trouble connecting with her – as well as my dad, too, because I felt like my dad sided with her, and that was really hard for me to go through. So here's this woman that I adored, who had that connection to my mom, that I was just missing this whole time, my whole life. And so it was ... I don't want to say a way out for me, but it was a way for me to begin this chipping away process of really diving deep and figuring out who I am. And so here is this one more puzzle piece, to who this woman who birthed me was, standing right in front of me, crying with me, holding me. She sat there in this wrecked car with my mom, holding her, crying — the same exact experience that I had with her, with Mrs. B! And she talked to my mom in some of the last moments of her life. And that was such a deeply transformative experience for Mrs. B. that she remembered it all those years, and she looked out for my name on the incoming list of high school students each year, you know, to request me to be in her class so that she could share that story with me. And she was just about to give up when my name was on the list.

For years, Mrs. B. waited for Chelsea’s name to show up on the incoming student list … and when it finally did, it happened at exactly the right time in Chelsea’s life: 

A time when she was struggling with her identity and the missing puzzle piece that her mom left behind the day she died. 

A time when she wasn’t connecting with her stepmom the same way she did as an 8-year-old kid. 

A time when Chelsea needed comfort. 

Mrs. B: I knew that one day I would probably run across her. And when I finally saw the name, it took me back to that day when the accident happened. And it just made it, like, all come to fruition. Like, here was the circle of life. I went directly up to the guidance counselor’s office, and I said, “This is the young lady.” And she said, “I was waiting for you to come up.” She had already talked with Roger about Chelsea and that I had been there that night. And he did not want anything said to Chelsea until he felt the time was right, when I felt the time was right, to let her know that I was there that night with her mom. 

The time wasn’t right when Chelsea was a high school freshman. But at the beginning of her sophomore year, soon after Mrs. B’s own mom died … it was.

Chelsea and Mrs. B start spending more time together during and outside of school. They eat lunch on the gym’s pool deck, talking through all of the things happening in Chelsea’s complicated teenage world. And Mrs. B. stays in touch with Roger and Shawna, so they know their daughter has someone else looking out for her.

Mrs. B.: She was a very bright young woman. She always brought a breath of fresh air with her. But I could always tell that there was something … and I don't know if that's because I knew what had happened in her life or not, but there was always something that bothered her. And then, through her writings in class and our discussions in class, she would talk about things in her life, and she was far more mature and worldly than a lot of the other students. But she had a lot of anger. She had a lot of questions that she just wanted answers, just things that she didn't know, because … she just wanted to learn about her mom and know about her mom. So we had a lot of talks. There were a lot of tears. She threw some things, sometimes. There was always something missing, and that's what she got so upset about. 

We’ll be right back.

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Mrs. B could see that part of what was hurting Chelsea in her adolescence was the emptiness she described even in early childhood, that longing for more of her mother: more answers, more information.

Mrs. B’s perspective helped fill in gaps that Chelsea couldn’t have imagined filling in. She was one of the people present for some of her mother’s final moments, and her presence in Chelsea’s life is this huge comfort. 

It’s Mrs. B who listens to Chelsea sort through all of these complicated feelings around her mother’s death. It’s Mrs. B who encourages Chelsea to go to therapy.

But it’s Roger who helps fill in those missing pieces Chelsea has been searching for her entire life … on Chelsea’s 20th birthday. 

Chelsea: He sat on the edge of my bed like he always did growing up as a kid, and he didn't look at me. He just looked at the floor, like he always did. And he said, “You know, I have these two diaries, one of which I wrote, and the other that everyone who knew your mom wrote a story about her. And I've had them, and I felt like your 20th birthday was the day that I would give them to you. And here they are.”

Roger: It may have actually been my sister-in-law's idea to do that. I don’t even know why I started doing that. 

Chelsea: And so I read them and I bawled. I cried so much, and I haven't picked them up in years, but I figured I would read a little bit from the one that my dad wrote. “I remember getting showered and dressed in my tuxedo for the wedding. I wasn't nervous at all. I went to the church and stood out front greeting people as they arrived. I still wasn't nervous. I went to the front of the church with your uncle. He was my best man. I walked out into the front of the church when told to and noticed how packed the church was with all of our friends and relatives. I watched the bridesmaids walk up the aisle and smiled at each of them. And then I saw your mom at the back of the church. As she and Grampy started down the aisle, my mouth dropped open and I fell short of breath. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. She looked like an angel. Surely I must be the luckiest man on Earth to love and be loved by this breathtakingly beautiful woman, I thought to myself. I still was not nervous. I was just so in love with Linda. It was like betting on a sure thing. Therefore, there was nothing to be nervous about. Seeing your mother come down the aisle in her wedding gown, watching you, Chelsea, be born, and seeing your baby brother are the most beautiful things I have ever seen. They are things I will live in my mind forever and ever.” 

Roger: I wanted her to eventually know what happened — what I was going through, what she was going through. You know, what we thought. Her mother would have told her that if she would have been here. But, you know .... So I did. And I started writing in it, and I started writing in it. But then eventually it just started getting hard, and then it got less and less and less, so ... 

Chelsea: This is the last page. And the writing is really messy. “I had to stop writing, because it made me sad and depressed. I knew that I must move on with life. I had to be strong to raise my wonderful daughter. I cried every time I wrote something down. I cried for years. I know that your mother would not have wanted me to be so sad and miserable. I had to be a responsible dad.” And that just really gets me, because … it just sums up how willing he was to put everything that he was going through, everything that he had been through, aside for me. And so that hits me really hard to this day. 

Roger: I even had reservations of: Should I give this to her or not? You know? I thought, you know, I wrote it for a purpose, but it was like, you know, is that going to bring her down, or what? And I hope it didn't. But, you know, I just thought she needed to know.

She did. 

She did need to know. 

She still needs to know. 

Chelsea: It was crazy to me, because my whole life prior to this moment, I had just begged my dad for some information, like, “Who is this woman who gave birth to me? I need her in my life, and I don't know her.” And all he could really manage to tell me was that I walked like she did. And he did the best he could. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just, I needed to begin the work of filling in that hole in my heart, and I didn't have anywhere to start. And here, all of a sudden on my 20th birthday, were these two books that were the start of me healing, really. 

When Chelsea opens the second notebook – filled with stories from the people who knew her mother best – the camera angle shifts again … and again. Here are the stories she has longed for, these visions of her mother as unique as the people who wrote them … each one a new detail she didn’t have before, that maybe even Roger didn’t have. 

Chelsea: “What I remember most about your mom is how excited she was about loving you. She wanted everything to be perfect and confided in us that she was hoping for a little girl. I was so happy for her when she got her wish. Both your mom and your dad were dreaming when we arrived at the hospital the day you were born. Your mom decided to take off work for several months over the summer. Sometimes she would push you to our house on nice days. She loved to go for walks.” This is from my aunts, who are still living in Puerto Rico. “To my dear Chelsea. I'm your aunt who loves you very much and never, never will forget your mom, Linda, my dear, dear niece. She was the greatest person and mom I’ve ever known. Titi, your other aunt, loves you very much. And she and I will always care for you and your dad and love you. You always have another house in Puerto Rico.” 

With every page, an image of who Linda was comes into focus. Chelsea devours those letters and notes, written by people she hasn’t been able to physically visit in years … 

… people like her grandmother in New England.

Chelsea: My grammy on my mom's side of the family was dying, and she only had a few days left to live. And I was just distraught because I hadn't seen them in years, and I’d felt so guilty for not being there, but also that was my grandma that I loved and adored, and I missed that side of my family, and so I called my dad that night and I was like, “I have to go.”

It’d been just a few months since Roger gave Chelsea the journals that jump started her healing, and she feels herself being pulled to her grandmother’s bedside.

Chelsea: I bought the ticket to leave that day. It was, like, eight hundred dollars. I wiped my entire savings account, and I flew up to New England. And I remember going over to my grammy’s side of the bed and just holding her hand, and she was non-conscious at this point. and in that moment, I was right there next to her, and she regained – or at least I'd like to think she regained – consciousness for one second. And I said, “Grammy, it's me, Chelsea. I flew up all the way to see you.” And I think in that moment she knew that I came to see her. That weekend was really transformative for me, because I was with my Puerto Rican side of the family without my dad being there. And it was the first time in my life where my aunt and my uncle and my cousins who were older than me, they were just telling all these stories about my mom. They were just reflecting on the past and celebrating my grandmother's life as if it was nothing. As if it was normal. And so here I was, just … I was a sponge. I absorbed everything, everything that they could tell me. I would ask questions like, “Oh, what was she like when she was a kid?” Like, “Can you tell me a funny story about this?” It was just like 48 hours of celebrating my grandmother's life and my mom's life. And so I came back home and back to school, and I just felt so refreshed. And I felt this for the first time, really, like a spiritual connection with my mom. And I remember my uncle called my dad afterward, and he was like, “You know, I haven't seen Chelsea in years. She looks just like you. But boy, does she remind me of her mom.” And my dad laughed, and he told him, you know, “I told her not to go because it was too expensive, but she had to go anyway.” And my uncle just said, “That's such a Linda move. Like, that's the same thing that she would have done.” And it was really then that I found out that I am very much my mom. She's not here in this life, but I am half her. And so when I have those moments of, you know, “I need my mom” – and I still do, you know, everyone has those moments where they feel like they need their mom –- I just am able to comfort myself as much as possible by knowing that I am so similar to her in so many ways. And that brings a lot of comfort to me.

One of my favorite children’s books growing up – and one of my own kids’ favorite books – is called “Are You My Mother?” by PD Eastman. In it, major spoilers, a little bird hatches from their egg just after his mother has left to go get him a lil’ worm. They’ve never seen his mother, but they set out to look for their mother. And with everything this bird encounters – a cat! a cow! a boat! a plane! – they ask the same question: “Are you my mother?” 

And they all respond the same way – quite rudely: They are not. 

And when baby bird and mama bird are finally reunited, she turns to her baby and asks, “Do you know who I am?” And the baby says yes … you are my mother.

If Chelsea was that little bird – walking around looking for her mother – she’s finally found her. 

Chelsea: I have so many moms now. I have so many women who have taken me under their wing. I think that the only way I really made it through that period of time and became confident in myself and who I am and, you know, turned into the woman that I am, is because I had so many other maternal figures in my life that I was able to put part of me into. I didn't have this person that was 50% me, but I had another woman, really, who was 5% me and another woman who was 10% me. And I was so lucky to be embraced by so many amazing women who helped me – whether they realized it or not – to become who I am. 

There is no replacing the people we love, no swapping them out and saying, “Fixed it!” But Chelsea has found that while the emptiness she felt as a child is not gone completely, it’s been lessened – by her father, by those journals, by her mother’s family, by Mrs. B …

… and by Shawna.

Chelsea: It just took me so long to understand that I have two moms, and they're both amazing, beautiful people that have helped shape who I am today. And my aunt, my mom's sister, she said when my dad called her to tell her that he met someone and her name was Shawna, she said in that moment, she just had this overwhelming feeling that my mom picked her for us – just by hearing her name. I love her so much. She is my mom through and through. I still can't say it. I can't call her Mom. I wish I could, but I just can't. But she is ... she is my mom in every sense of the word. I just have two. 

Nora: What is your relationship with your mom like now?

Chelsea: I still have maybe two or so nights a year where I just have this deep longing to talk to her. And I always end up crying myself to sleep, because I'm just laying there and I feel so alone. And some of those emotions just- they come back from when you were a kid, and you can never truly move past them. They're always with you. And I still long for her. I always will. Even though I never knew her. And I think that my relationship with her has changed, because I know who she is now. I know who she was, but she still is to me. She's kind of this ever-evolving presence in my life that's always, always there. And I didn't know that as a kid, because I wasn't aware enough, and I didn't have enough life experience to understand how she was with me. But she's always there, and she's always supporting me. And my conversations with her brother and her sister, and even my dad later in life, and reading the diaries that he gave me, helped develop my sense of who she is and therefore deepened my relationship with her and made me so aware of and to deeply know that she is the most proud of me of anybody in my life. I wish that I knew that as a kid. I wish that I had the awareness, and I wish that I had the knowledge that she was there for me and that she was proud of me. But now I know that. [crying] I’m sorry.

Nora: Oh. Um. Thank you. That was really beautiful. [crying] Yeah. Oh. She has a lot to be proud of. Thank you for doing this with us. 

Chelsea: Thanks for having me.