Guest Blog by Jules Hanhart

I Promise Mom by Jules Hanhart (EJ Hanhart’s Oldest Daughter)

My mom signed my birth certificate; I signed her death certificate.

She picked my first outfit, and I chose her last one. She witnessed my first breath. I witnessed her last. - Anonymous

Jules Hanhart is a graduate of Southern Louisiana University and works as a General Manager at Hammond Milan’s Restaurant. 

“Take care of them, promise me you’ll take care of them,” was the last thing my mother said to me. She was referring to my dad and my siblings. I was the last person she spoke to. I had the privilege of being the one with her in her last moments of awareness.

While I was crying on her head and playing with her hair, like I promised her I would, I made her so many promises in her last minutes of consciousness. I laughed, choking on my tears, as I reminded her that when she was diagnosed with cancer a second time, she told me something similar. Nearly four years ago, she told me she couldn’t handle it if I cried, that I had to be strong for her. She said this to me again, on her deathbed. But could I handle it this time? That’s a question I still haven’t found an answer to.

I will handle it. I will ensure everyone and everything is okay. Because I promised her I would, I will. I will carry the weight, because she asked me to take it when she had to leave. She bore it on her shoulders for a long time, but when she no longer could, it was my turn. However, I don’t mind, and I would make the same promise a million times over.

I think my brain has blocked out most of that night. Bits and pieces came to memory over time, like a puzzle. It was weird, it still is weird. She made my dad promise that he wouldn’t let her die in a hospital, and he kept her promise. Dad brought her home from the hospital and placed her in their bed, just like she wanted.

On June 5^th, 2024, at 1:15 in the morning, my mother walked through the pearly gates to meet her Maker. I lay beside her until I cried myself to sleep, next to her cold, stiff body. I slept there until the funeral home arrived to take her body. After they took her, I slept again, in the bed with the shirt she wore earlier that day.

When I woke up, the first thing I did was reach for my phone to call my mom. My mom fixed everything. She was the only person who could fix me. Every time my heart had been broken before, she put all the pieces back together and made it better than before. But she’s not here for the worst heartbreak of my life, losing her.

God, it hurts so bad. Yet at the same time, it doesn’t feel real. Sometimes, I just wait to wake up from this dream because there’s no way she could be gone. I still had so much more to learn from her, and I’m not ready to do this on my own. I’m not ready to take care of everyone as I promised her I would. But I promised, and my mom would probably descend from Heaven to pop me if I broke a promise. She was always very big on promises.

Everyone is turning to me for answers that I don’t have, but now it’s my job to figure it out. My sister asked me what she should wear for her senior portraits. My brother asked me what to do when he can’t pay rent. My dad asked me what he’s supposed to do for the rest of his life without Mom. My boyfriend asked me what he could do. My boss asked if I was okay. My best friend asked me what I need. Everyone has questions, even I have questions. I don’t have answers. My mom would know the answers.

How do I keep these plants alive? How long should I cook the lasagna she made and froze for me? What do I do for a career when my feelings have changed about what I’ve wanted for my entire life? How is the world still turning? How am I supposed to live without you?

So many questions left unanswered. I’m trying to find the answers, remembering conversations we’ve had in the past. I know she prepared me, taught me, and raised me, and all I have ever wanted is to be just like her. But I’m not her, and she’s not here, and suddenly I feel like the same five-year-old girl crying and asking her how to fix my Barbie doll that my brother snapped the head from. It’s been nine months without her, and though I don’t have all the answers, I’m learning.

My mother and I always had a relationship that no one truly understood. We were best friends, mother and daughter, coworkers, teammates, we were everything to each other. If I knew something, she knew it too, and vice versa, even when we swore to never tell a soul. I knew everything about her, and she knew the same for me. She was, is, and always will be, my favorite human being.

I know nearly everyone says that about their mother, but, as I said, no one truly knows or understands our relationship. I like it that way, it was just ours, and no one can ever take that from me, or ever get to experience it like we did. My favorite chats were our middle-of-the-night talks, whisper laughing to not wake anyone up, or sometimes even whisper crying, whisper yelling, whatever it was, it was just the two of us. Sometimes we would go outside and sit in the car, with sour watermelon candies and a Diet Coke in hand, dressed in pajama pants and slippers, and talk for hours. When I moved out, many of these chats were phone calls and FaceTimes, and each would start with “What are you doing awake?” We already knew the answer before we asked the question. I wonder if she still hears me talking to her now in the middle of the night, just like all those nights. I hope she does.

I want to tell her that I lost it at work the other day. I was having a hard day, and work sucked. I went out back and bummed a cigarette from a coworker; I don’t even smoke cigarettes. I want to tell her that I was so worked up, crying, screaming, that I punched the fence and my knuckles are bruised and swollen. My boss and good friend, Eduardo, told me later that night that I needed to focus on what I had rather than everything I had lost.

I have a beautiful family, a man who treats me like I am the reason the world spins, a good job, the means to a good education, and wonderful friends. It angered me at first, because of course I realized that, if it weren’t for what I have left, I probably wouldn’t survive. He told me that was the point: I’m surviving, not living. He’s right. My mom would say the same thing.

I’ve come to realize that she wasn’t asking me not to break, but to remember that I am strong and can continue with life because she showed me how. She was asking me to promise that I wouldn’t let her death break us. She wanted us to live. She was the strongest woman I’ve ever known. And in her last moments, my dad, brother, sister, and I were all that was on her mind. I think that’s really beautiful. I choose to live whatever time I have left on this earth by glorifying her, and I glorify her by glorifying the Lord.