The freedom with which Tamar loved and lived both mystified and entranced me. My own mother is perceptive, thoughtful and smart, but also timid. My whole childhood, it was as if she was waiting for permission to be a mother — permission that never came. As a child, I hungered for direction, but my mother didn’t feel it was “her place” to advise me. “Whatever you think is best,” she would say. I felt like an unclaimed suitcase winding its way around a baggage claim carousel. What I didn’t know then was that she had suffered years of abuse at the hands of my father; I only learned that years later. What I did know was that his casual cruelty and contempt filled our house with a seething, brittle tension.
Tamar was the opposite of my mother. When she first laid eyes on the small apartment I shared with her son, she noted his guitars, books and posters scattered everywhere. Looking at me, she said, “You know you can take up more space, my dear.” She had strong opinions and an even louder voice. At dinner parties, she dominated the men but was always careful to seek my opinion.
For the seven years that I was with her son and five years after, she loved me fiercely and unconditionally. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was for it. When a surprise miscarriage landed me in the emergency room, she was there until three in the morning waiting for me to be released. For the next week, she made my favorite soup and propped up the pillows on her couch so I could lie weeping in comfort. On the day of my first half marathon, she cheered so loudly that my boyfriend had to shush her. She just shrugged and kept cheering.
“We’re all going to die, right?” she would say when I hesitated over a purchase. “Life’s too short not to do what your heart desires.”
When her son and I broke up, I cried so hard I couldn’t breathe.
“I’m not sure this is just about us,” he said, perceptively.
I couldn’t bring myself to look at him, or even to respond. For years, every time he’d brought up marriage, I’d changed the subject. Instead, we’d spent an increasingly large amount of time in his mother’s living room.
I worried about how our breakup would impact my relationship with Tamar, but she went out of her way to reassure me. Surprisingly, so did my ex.
“I don’t have to call her, because you do,” he joked during one of our occasional coffee dates.
Tamar didn’t give birth to me, but she did choose me, and that helped me believe in myself. In hurricanes, birds survive by flying into the vortex, sometimes swept along with it for hundreds of miles. I wonder if they feel disoriented and off-kilter when the storm deposits them somewhere new and unfamiliar. I wonder if they long to remain in the eye, where it is calm. I have felt that longing. But during those 12 years, when Tamar held me aloft with her love, I had become a stronger and more confident person. In fact, it was only because of that strength that I was ready to let her go.
After the wedding of my boyfriend’s sister, I gradually withdrew from Tamar. Ours wasn’t a relationship I could just dabble in. Over time, we confined ourselves to yearly birthday and New Year’s cards. I wasn’t surprised, though, that my ex got in touch when she was dying of cancer.
“She wants to say goodbye,” he said.
By then, more than a decade had passed, and I had moved to a different country. But I didn’t hesitate.
When I climbed the hill to the little stone house, I found her much changed. She was no longer the hummingbird flitting from place to place. Her motions had become lethargic, her coal-black hair, which she’d always been so proud of, had turned grey. She labored to breathe. But the bright purple scarf remained, as did the steady gaze when she pulled me into a hug.
“Tell me everything,” she said.
Smiling, she fixed us tea, plucking mint leaves from the pot on the windowsill. As we chatted, ”All My Loving” began to play on the old radio in the kitchen. She loved the Beatles and swayed falteringly in time to the music. Watching her, I teared up. She put the back of her hand to my cheek and pulled me up to dance with her, the skin on her hands now crepey.
“Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you, tomorrow I’ll miss you, remember I’ll always be true…”
I closed my eyes and swayed.
Sarah Gundle, Psy.D., is a psychologist in private practice and an assistant professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She is currently writing a book about breakups.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost in May 2025.
