Bits and Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, and Me

by Whoopi Goldberg

my mother never got to stand still for a minute and let someone else handle it all for a while. No one was going to show up and rescue her,

A couple of days after she died, I realized that there would be no one on this earth who loved me as much as she did.

It’s very important that I be the person I hope I am.”

I just wondered if you believe in God.” “Well, I believe in my God.” And I said, “Is your God different from other people’s God?” She said, “I think, yes, sometimes.”

My mom’s lifelong belief in me turned into my mantra: “I can do anything I want if I put my mind to it.”

I say, you can have it all. But you’ve got to walk away from the idea that it’s going to look like some movie. Having it all is as messy as you can get. You’re going to have consequences for your choices. Not everybody is going to think you’ve got it together. That’s the hard part of that kind of goal. You’re going to spend your life trying to figure it out. There are going to be really great times when you feel like what you do matters. And then there will be times when you have to accept that you aren’t all that and you have to rely on other people for help,

I didn’t know anything about feeling lost until after she died. I wouldn’t call it crippling grief because it doesn’t have a grip on me. It is more of a grief that stays way down in my toes. It doesn’t feel dark. It’s a kind of fog or numbness. I can’t figure out what I’m supposed to feel now. I’m not raving angry, but I resent the fact that my mom and Clyde aren’t here anymore.

I’m lonely, but not for other people.