11-05-2025
I'm grateful for the time with my mom. I grieve the time I lost
I, like all other gay men my age, was obsessed with this season of "The White Lotus" — specifically, the three college best friends who travel for a week in Thailand only to steal shady glances and gossip about each other's lives. I strongly identified as a Laurie, Carrie Coon's character, as the career-driven, sensible, but sensitive and passive aggressive friend. (What can I say? We all have flaws.) So, in the season finale, when she delivers a powerful monologue about the impermanence of life and finding purpose in it, and she says, 'Time gives it [my life] meaning.' It hit me hard. I teared up. I laughed. I screamed, 'Give her the Emmy!' at the screen. I loved it. But then, the more I thought about it, the more I got annoyed.
Since my mom's unexpected passing last August, the only thing I can think about is time. I think about time lost. I think about how others get more time. I would randomly Google older celebrities' ages or compare their time on this earth against my mom's 67 years. It's made my relationship with time obsessive, critical and skeptical. As I obsessed over time, I also grew tired of it. After she died, days felt like weeks, weeks somehow felt like years. I started reading about grief and the importance of giving yourself time. I would think 'this too shall pass' or 'time heals all wounds' — but for me, time was the wound. Now, about nine months after her passing, as I'm beginning to feel more like myself, it's Mother's Day again — and I'm confronted with the fact that I don't have any more time.
So, if time gives life meaning, then what happens when time runs out? In the weeks after the "White Lotus" finale, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I know what the monologue was trying to say, but it felt like a slight, or even an attack. I found myself overthinking, obsessing over it. I've wanted to give up answering the question, what makes life meaningful — and that has become clear in her passing.
Since her passing, I've been inundated with examples of a life well-lived, many of which can be found in a city we both love and will always call home, Detroit. Her lifelong friends reach out to share stories from their days living on West Warren or singing in the choir at Carter Metropolitan. Her colleagues at the Detroit Water and Sewage Department reminisce about how she was a tough but fair boss who always cared for people on her team. Her friends from Cass Tech sent love from their 50th high school reunion she just missed.
Her voice echoes in these stories like she is in the room. In fact, in her absence, I realize how much I reference her and her mottos — witty, sharp and sometimes cutting one-liners about purpose, responsibility and integrity. Not the old phrase "you are what you do" — which I've always hated as I think it's reductive. Sure, you are what you do, but you're also what you love, what you think, what you feel. I am not reduced to what I do, who I love or even how I grieve — meaning truly comes from the stories that persist, the lives we touched and the connections formed. As I live in a new reality without her here physically, time has continued to offer one lesson: Our meaning outlives time.
I'd like to say I've come to some evolved perspective on time, but I still hold tension with it. Time is both a friend and a foe — I am both grateful for it and loathsome of it. Some days, it feels like a cheerleader; other days, like the school bully. I've learned that I can't control time, only how I choose to live in it. How I spend it. Time thinking about her. Time celebrating her impact. Time loving my family and friends the way my mom loved hers. Perhaps, the time spent writing this op-ed.
She has no more time in the physical — that part is done. But now that her time is gone, her life finds new meaning.
So, Carrie Coon, I don't know if time gives our lives meaning. But through all of life's stuff — through loss and grief, triumphs and traumas — it's become clear to me that life's meaning outlives time. This Mother's Day, I am grateful for the time I had. I grieve the time I lost. I celebrate the honor of walking through this world as Dawn Griffith's son. And as someone who overthinks everything, maybe that's good enough — for today.
Matthew Griffith
The writer is a native Detroiter living in Los Angeles
Regarding the letter from Karen Donahue. ("I expected more from Gretchen Whitmer," Detroit Free Press, May 4.)
It is estimated that the economic impact that Selfridge Air Force Base has on Michigan is in excess of $850 million, with 30,000 jobs supported by the base. Karen Donahue's letter chastises Governor Whitmer for casting aside politics and working with the Trump administration to secure the future of this base. Governor Whitmer, this is exactly what I expect from you.
The governor should be lauded for putting the interests of Michiganders above politics. She's clearly no fan of the current president. But she understands how important the base is to the economic vitality of our state.
Brian Sietsema
Huntington Woods
Opinions influence choices and the words used to describe current events.
Opinions are influenced by personal experience and sources of information. In today's world there are many different sources of information. People choose the source of their information often based on what they want to hear and become isolated from other viewpoints.
Letters: Anti-Trump protesters don't like Trump. You don't say. | Letters
Many people are biased by the information source they choose. Unfortunately, people often do not even try to listen to other viewpoints or sources. In reading 100 Voices, I often saw phrases I am familiar with from certain broadcasting news shows (Fox News). It would have been interesting to hear not only who these people voted for, but where they get the majority of their news/information from.
Renee Vatne
Sterling Heights
Trump's new EPA lead sings a tune all of us familiar with Flint should recognize | Opinion
Whether we root for U of M or MSU, whether we vote red or blue, there's one thing all Michiganders have in common: we love our Great Lakes. The Great Lakes are vital to our state's economy, tourism industry and way to life, not to mention that they comprise 20 percent of the world's fresh water.
Now, the Great Lakes are under attack and all Michiganders should be outraged. President Trump's proposed budget drastically cuts funding to the EPA and NOAA, which will result in a rise in invasive species, devasting our commercial and recreational fishing. Our beaches will become more dangerous without access to forecasts about rip current and E. coli contamination. And 30 million people who get their drinking water from the lakes may lose access to clean water.
If you value the Great Lakes, now is the time to contact your elected officials and demand that they reject these dangerous cuts that will destroy our way of life.
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Lynn Baldwin
Ann Arbor
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Mother's Day, Trump's visit, Whitmer's role, Great Lakes | Letters
