The two Logan residents have healthy careers and children of their own, but both still feel a profound sense of loss many years after the early deaths of their mothers. As Mother's Day approaches, they are among many Utah women whose moms' absence has shaped their identities, wounded their self-esteem and influenced their own maternal behavior.
"I feel like I don't have any map for my life," says Hallam, whose mom died of bone cancer when she was 16. "I don't know who I'm supposed to be or what I'm supposed to do."
Sunday's holiday is always a melancholy one for the two friends, but this year, they're doing something about it: They are holding a free, catered luncheon Saturday in Logan for motherless women of all ages. More than 50 women already have signed up to attend, and more are welcome.
Hallam and Royer hope the lunch will launch a monthly support group for motherless daughters. Guests on Saturday will be encouraged to share stories of their late moms and discuss their death's impact on their own lives.
"It's about honoring our mothers," says Hallam of the event. "Come and share as much or as little as you want. Even if you don't feel like sharing, at least you're going to hear stories that you can relate to."
Stories like this: Royer was living with her parents and three siblings in Layton when her mother was diagnosed with cancer and died within two weeks. Royer remembers holding her dying mother's hand in the hospital. She was 6.
Royer's childhood bewilderment at the loss of her mother was compounded by her father's avoidance of the issue.
"Because he couldn't deal with it, maybe he thought that we [children] couldn't, either," Royer says. "He didn't talk about her. We didn't see pictures of her for a long time. It was like if we didn't have to talk about her, we wouldn't have to deal with the grief."
Fearing that she, too, would die in her 20s, Royer married at 18 and had two kids right away.
In her rush to make a positive impact on their lives, she unwittingly transferred her anxieties to her daughter, who developed a fear that something bad would happen to her mom.
"I'm more aware now of the impact we have on our children's lives," says Royer, 40, who manages a dental practice. "What we do and say will be passed on to them, even if we don't know it."
Like Royer, Hallam has feared she won't outlive her mother's life-span. Unlike Royer, that day has yet to arrive. Hallam's mom died at 38. Hallam is 31.
"For a long time I couldn't imagine my life after 38," says the single mom, who tests incoming students at Bridgerland Applied Technology College in Logan. "Even now I think, 'Oh, man - I have seven years.' "
Although Hallam is close to her father, she believes most women model themselves after their mothers, and that the sudden loss of that nurturing figure leaves many daughters adrift. Like many women in her shoes, Hallam wonders how different she might be today were her mother still alive.
"I probably would have accomplished a lot more. I probably would have been more confident," she says. Hallam missed her mother intensely at her wedding, the births of her two sons and during her subsequent divorce.
In recent months, Hallam has stopped resenting her mother and allowed herself to feel the pain of her loss. By doing so, she discovered that the cathartic pain of grieving is nothing compared with the ongoing anguish of not grieving.
"I've just started the journey of healing," she says. Hallam gives much of the credit for her recovery to a book, Motherless Daughters: The Legacy of Loss, by Hope Edelman. "Now that I'm no longer angry, I feel the bond [with my mother] coming back. I'm remembering things about her that are happy. And it feels really good."
The efforts of Hallam and Royer to come to terms with their mothers' absences have inspired Sue Germaine, a Logan massage therapist who lost her mom to breast cancer more than 50 years ago.
Germaine contacted Hallam after seeing an article in the Logan newspaper and plans to attend Saturday's lunch.
Germaine sometimes feels psychologically arrested at age 3, which is how old she was when her mother died. Well-meaning relatives explained the death by saying, "your mom missed her mother so much that she went to live with her" - a comment that tormented Germaine's tender psyche for years. Then her father married again, to an aloof woman who forbade all mention of Germaine's mother.
Germaine blames this for decades of anxiety, depression and low self-esteem. She has three grown children who call her every Mother's Day, but she still feels an emptiness that she is determined to erase.
"We were never allowed to mourn the loss. And you can't move forward until you do," she says. "I'm hoping that I can learn to celebrate my mother. I'm hoping that I can get some peace.
"I miss her. I've missed her for a long time."
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Contact Brandon Griggs at griggs@sltrib.com or 801-257-8689. Send comments about this story to livingeditor@ sltrib.com.
Sharing strength
A "Motherless Daughters" luncheon will be held Saturday at 11 a.m. at the north entrance of Bridgerland Applied Technology College, 1301 N. 600 West in Logan. Women are encouraged to bring a photo of their late mother. Admission is free, but space is limited. Please RSVP today, by noon, if possible, by calling Heather Hallam at 435-770-3001 or Lisa Royer at 435-881-1581.
