The Meaning of Loss
By Alecs Kakon
Why is it that some memories stick, change us, leave their imprint, while others leave us unscathed? Why is it that some people have a more linear approach to processing certain experiences, while others are left to work them out like an pendular math equation with no solution? Throughout my many conversations with women about everything from love and loss to trauma and vulnerability, one subject recurs with unwavering impact on how we, as women, grow and become the people we are. I often think about my relationship with my mother and the impact it has had on me and how I relate to people, how I raise my children, my values, and so on. The more women I speak to about their upbringing, the role of the mother comes up time and again, because she, the mother, is the mirror we hold to ourselves. Or, is she? A source of unconditional support and stability, the root of pain and anguish, the person we often come back to in our search for answers about ourselves, about relationships, about life, mothers play a pivotal role whether it be in strong presence or strong absence and everything in between. Chatting with Jen Fellegi we touched on all these feelings. Catching her at a “moment when it’s all coming out,” Jen has been on a deep dive into her past in her quest to learn more about herself, and in so doing, she has come to a standstill at the mystery that is her mother. What started off as pulling at one loose thread has now become a full unraveling.
When Jen’s parents first got divorced, she was only 5 years old. Having taken full custody, Jen and her sister lived full-time with their father and saw their mother every other weekend as well as once a week for a sleepover Tuesday nights (side note: in Paris, where Jen grew up, kids didn’t have school on Wednesdays). Perhaps Jen was too young at the time, or perhaps the incredible love and support her father gave her more than made up for the absence, but Jen says that she “always thought it was a great divorce, and it didn’t affect me.” Throughout her formative years, Jen was relatively unfazed by the situation. It was how it was. But she started to feel the absence a few years later when her mother was diagnosed and fighting breast cancer. “She was around more, but we didn’t know she had cancer. She hid it so well,” Jen reflects. “I remember once she leaned over and I saw an insert; her breast was gone. I asked about it and my mother said it was ‘ok’ and it was ‘no big deal’. She was protecting us from her pain.” Staying strong for her children, spending time with them and shielding them against the truth, was relatively short-lived as Jen’s mother would ultimately pass when Jen was 14.
Loss had become a recurring theme in Jen’s life as she felt the deep impact of having lost her mother twice, first to divorce and then to cancer. She would only come to fully comprehend the full extent of that impact later in life. “It felt like she abandoned me twice,” Jen explains. Having gone through extensive therapy as she attempts to retrace the memories of her past, it was only when Jen had her first daughter that she could grasp the full extent of that abandonment. “It’s now that I have my own kids that I feel how much I suffered from her absence,” she reveals. “Having kids allowed me to stop being mad at my mom for what felt like having abandoned me, because I see how hard it is to be a parent, but it also triggered a lot.” Wanting more than anything to move on from the pain and find peace, Jen knows that when she can finally put some of these questions to rest, it will allow her to regain her footing and better allow her to be fully present with her children, but ultimately, it would allow her to let go of the past and be present with herself.
The struggles we want to work through in life manifest in many different ways. For Jen, having spent a good stint of her photography career perfecting the mother-daughter shoot, she explains that her search to find and get to know her mother has been a guiding source of creativity and continues to drive her in her quest to find meaning. Reflecting on the void she has felt in her life, Jen says she “would just like to know her. I feel a part of me is missing, and being able to talk to her and ask her questions, I feel like it would give me peace. I remember her through the eyes of a child, so to know her as an adult would be to unlock a mystery and provide me with much needed solace.” With so much in her life to feel grateful for, Jen treads lightly as she goes deeper and deeper to understand her past as well as ensure that she learns from it rather than repeat it. “My children were my defining moment. I know I won’t repeat what my mom did, because I know my situation is different and I’m a different person.” Words she reminds herself of as she explores her fears, her angst, and even her irritation for not having worked all of this out already. Wanting so much to move past this tense moment, she is ready to feel the growth of its release.
Jen taught me a lot in talking about her relationship with her mother, and in turn, her relationship with herself. Our mothers play such a vital role in how we know ourselves, love ourselves, value ourselves, and so to have internalized so wholeheartedly the idea that she was abandoned, places an intense amount of pain around a woman who, in the grand scheme of things, is the first and largest mirror we have of ourselves and the world we live in. Trying to locate the source of tension, Jen is reasoning with pain and attempting to negotiate her way out of it, but perhaps the mystery that is her mother need not be solved. Perhaps her mother was simply a woman dealing with her own mental and physical illness, and Jen was unfortunately a child left in the wake of it all. Having gone on to live a life rich with love and travel, family and friends, Jen is currently pulling focus on a past memory so as to repurpose it, find new meaning, and help her on her path to self-discovery. Perhaps the peace Jen is searching for is buried deep within her. When she will finally be able to loosen the grip her mother’s memory has on her, perhaps that’s when she will emerge her new self.
Profile Photos by Amelie Boucher
