Friday, October 24, 2014

Missing You Mom



Dear Mom,
Seven years ago today I became an Orphan.  It was not something I had ever given much  thought to. But the morning after you died, I awoke and my first thought was, this is the first day of my life without a Mother. I was taken aback by the thought and the feeling that accompanied it.  You were really gone.  And for the first time I really understood how paramount you had been in my life.  And now seven years later I know it even more.

I hope you hear me when I talk to you.  I hope you see me and all the things I've been through and done since you left.  I believe you do.  I think you are right here with me, next to me but still able to do all the things a Soul does in the magic of Eternity.  How could you be anywhere but with me your child? Thats what Mother's do.

I know I was always head strong and stubborn.  I believe that added to my inability to see things as they were.  I was so focused on wanting you to be the Mother I wanted, that I failed to realize that you were the Mother that I needed.  You were not demonstrative.  You often vocalized how you wished you could be.  But no one had ever taught you how and the discomfort of kisses and I love yous never really left you. Instead you "did".  You got up at 5 and sent Dad off to work.  Then you fixed your fussy eater (me) food I liked for lunch.  I would go on kicks for 3-4 months at a time.  Egg Salad, chicken sandwiches....that entailed boiling eggs and shelling them.  Cooking inexpensive pieces of chicken and picking the meat off the bones.  And always there were fresh baked goods.  You ironed my uniforms and then fought with me to get out of bed.  Off I'd go with nary a thank you.  Finally you'd have forty five minutes to yourself before you went to work at the Bank.Then home at 5:30 to cook and clean and get ready for the same routine tomorrow.  You didn't complain.  You didn't coddle.  You were strict.  If you said it, it happened. I thought you were so mean.

Then I grew up, married, had a family of my own.  Still I could not see you for the woman you were. I thought my problems were original.  You and I still had our difficulties. My blinders where on even as you reached out for me to catch me as I fell out of my marriage.  I took so much for granted.  Wasn't that what a Mother was for.

Years passed.  You had some health issues.  I nursed you back to health.  I tended you.  I still could not see you as a person in her own right.  You were my Mother.

Another decade passed and now you were in need.  It was the two of us.  Finally the barriers were down.  For the first time I really honored you, just like the commandment said.  I helped you through the difficult act of dying.  It was not me alone.  It was Jack and Pat, and Ann, David, Lara, Mary, Renee, Trish and many many others.  But we had a lot of moments alone.  It wasn't until you were no longer awake that I could begin to say all the things that had gone unsaid. To thank you for all the things I had failed to see, appreciate or realize.  And now seven years later, I am still recalling. I see you often in myself.  Sometimes it scares me.
I never thought I'd say it, but honestly Mom, I'm proud to be like you.  I love you.

Until next time.....Always,
Kathleen