You were here and now you aren't...

        So today marks the 19th year of being "motherless".  I am amazed at how from year to year my feelings on this change.  The one constant is always at the root...I miss my mom.  I think this year is particularly hard on me because I am the same age now that my mother was when she died.  When I try to wrap that around my brain I get a bit weepy...SHOCKER...I know.  (Hey, lately, that's something I'm good at!) I can't imagine leaving now.  There's so much more to do and I have things that I'm waiting for...like getting my own "littles"... (not rushing anything Madison and Miles)  but to think that this would be it ... well, that's just too much to think about.  Don't worry, I'm not going to start rambling on about "how short life is"..."how important it is to take it all in"  or any thing like that... I already know that and so do you.  It is over told.  It is told so often that it's like looking at your bulletin  board, you look at it but you don't see the individual pieces, you just see it in a swift glance. Blah blah blah.

       I wanted to share the eulogy I wrote for her 19 years ago but of course, I can't find it. So instead I will share the two things I do have on my bulletin board for my mom...

My mother died today...I am in a fog but I know that my mother is not.  In one sense there is no death.  The life of a soul on earth lasts beyond her departure.  You will always feel that life touching yours, that voice speaking to you, that spirit looking out of other's eyes, talking to you in the familiar things she touched, worked with, loved as familiar friends, She lives on in your life and in the lives of all others that knew her.

Life is eternal...I am standing upon the seashore.  A ship at my side spreads her whites sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.  She is an object of beauty and strength and I stand and watch her, until at length, she hangs like a speck of white cloud...just where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other.  Then someone at my side says, "There, she is gone!"  Gone where?  Gone from my sight, that is all.   She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side, and just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of destination.  Her diminished size is in me, not in her, and just at the moment when someone at my side says "there, she is gone" there are other eyes watching her coming and other voices ready to take up the glad shout "There, SHE COMES!"

       I find great comfort in reading and pondering over both of those statements and although I did not write either of those, I feel as if I could.  It is my high hope, that I get to enjoy much more life and living and loving.  I want to see my children get married and have littles and get to juice those littles til they giggle their tiny heads off.  I want to spend evenings laughing and loving my friends and my husband and my entire family. 

        I am still mad at my mom for leaving and I remember the exact time my sister called and said..."she's gone." I slide down my kitchen cabinets and sat in the dead space in the corner of the counter.  Madison repeatedly saying..."we have to do my Valentines cards MOM!...come out of there." I recall going to see the group America, a year or more after she had died, and I had met Gerry Beckley and Bruce had taken my picture with him and driving home, my very first thought was..."I can't wait to tell my mom!  She's gonna die!"  Then I remembered...she already had.  There have been countless times when I wished she was here. Holidays, birthdays, summer days, graduations...on and on.  Over time it has diminished, I don't walk around upset about it for hours on end but there's always that one fleeting minute that gives you a quick jab.  Then I move on. 

       I'm very honored to keep her in my heart.  She lived large, she laughed and she loved.  I don't think I've ever met anyone who didn't think she was totally awesome.  She was a mover, ahead of her own time. She did not judge anyone.  I think that's one of my best gifts from her.  I am proud of that.  I hope I've done enough... so when I do go,  my children, my husband, and my family and friends feel me jabbing them...just a quick little one.  

I miss you mom.

Good night my little moons.